Thanks to some unexpected timeliness on the part of Congress, the tax extenders were passed early enough for tax season to start on January 19, just as we went to press. [For more on the details of the extenders legislation, see our stories on pages 10 and 11.) And thanks to some unexpected congressional generosity in the form of a $290 million budget increase, the Internal Revenue Service promised improved taxpayer service and security, and a functioning Practitioner Priority Line. The service planned to hire up to a thousand extra customer service representatives. "I'm pretty confident our Practitioner Priority Line will actually work this year," said Commissioner John Koskinen, adding that he hopes to improve the rate of callers who get through to 60 percent, and to reduce wait times to under 20 minutes. (According to a recent Government Accountability Office report, only 38 percent of callers got through last year, and wait times were over 30 minutes.) He also noted that the IRS spent a great deal of time last year making sure that the tax-filing experience is more safe and secure for taxpayers this year.
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