U.S. Rep, Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, has sent a letter to the IRS Commissioner requesting solutions for what the Congressman calls, "inadequacies," in service at the IRS office in Gainesville.
In the August 12 letter to John Koskinen, Collins said he'd received numerous reports from constituents that the office on Oak Street was, "frequently helping as few as three to six people a day."
Collins said he then visited the office about a month ago, arriving at 8:15 a.m. one day.
"One woman I talked to said that she had gotten to the IRS office at 4:00 a.m. in order to get in line and be seen, others arrived at 8:30 and were turned away because there was no hope to be seen that day," Collins said in the letter.
In an interview with AccessWDUN Friday, Collins said when the office did let people in that morning, they were told the system was down and that no one would basically be able to get help.
The Oak Street office is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. It's closed from noon until 1:00 p.m. for lunch according to irs.gov. It employs one person to assist taxpayers with items ranging from adjustments to payment arrangements.
"I don't blame the local IRS. There's one person and a security guard. I don't blame them. They're trying to do the best they can. I have the utmost respect for them, Collins said. What is troubling here is that we have one person that covers basically 700,000 plus (people) because people from North Carolina come down here as well to try and get help."
AccessWDUN made multiple calls to the Oak Street office Friday afternoon for comment. The line was either busy or the phone rang repeatedly with no voice mail option.
Prior to his letter to Koskinen, Collins said his office contacted the Washington, D.C. IRS office. He said his staffers were told an appointment system was expected to be implemented in October that would resolve the issues with lines.
"The appointment system will not help, it'll just keep people from standing in front of the door...there's supposed to be at least two (staffers) in Gainesville, but they've moved one to Atlanta."
When asked if budget issues were keeping staffing levels low in the office, Collins said the agency and Koskinen would make that claim.
"They've had plenty of time to spend money investigating a lot of other things, and they understand that if they do this on the customer service side, people will be frustrated and would call my office or others and say, 'you need to give more money to the IRS.' They need to spend and deploy money where their mission is, and that is to help the American taxpayer," Collins said.
In the letter, Collins asked Koskinen to explain steps the agency would take to address the issues by August 19.
A spokesman from the IRS Media Relations Office that covers Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee and Mississippi said since Collins' letter was addressed to Koskinen, any statement would come from federal officials in Washington, D.C.
