Toll-Free Telephone Assistance Fiscal Year Calls Answered TP Disconnects (Abandons) Busy Signals (Overflows) Calls to IRS (Total Attempts) Level of Access* Level of Service** 1995 60,550,833 10,797,880 410,983,282 482,331,995 14.8% 12.6% 1996 65,528,231 13,501,880 185,276,609 264,306,720 29.9% 24.8% 19977 73,566,663 20,809,401 50,987,381 145,363,445 64.9% 50.6% 1998 69,689,197 20,194,355 10,035,389 99,918,941 90.0% 69.7% 1999 65,795,919 18,463,463 39,192,553 123,451,935 68.3% 53.3% 2000 57,345,221 16,675,970 20,604,835 94,626,026 78.2% 60.6% 2001 51,121,805 17,515,556 25,435,884 94,073,245 73.0% 54.3%

Source: Internal IRS reports. Some of the calls from FY 1999 onward reflect changes in IRS tracking systems and/or services which have added new "product" lines to what is covered.

* Level of access: extent to which taxpayers are able to get through (not get a busy signal). However, it does not take into account the extent to which taxpayers get into IRS' system but are put on hold and abandon their calls before an assistor comes on line. [GAO report, GGD-00-37, p. 25] Starting in FY 2001, some technical revisions made in measuring busy signals to better measure IRS's physical capacity to handle the calls.

** Level of service: considers abandoned calls as unsuccessful call attempts and, thus, measures the extent to which taxpayers are successful in reaching an assistor. [GAO report, GGD-00-37, p. 25]

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Syracuse University

Copyright 2002