The Internal Revenue Service will be increasing its staff at its Gainesville office in the latest volley between the agency and Ninth Congressman Doug Collins (R-Gainesville).
The office will be adding a second full-time employee to the Oak Street facility starting in October, according to a letter sent from IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to Collins, and the office will be transitioning to an automated, online appointment system, moving away from the "golden ticket" system (as Collins put it) that had to be employed previously.
"We're very pleased that they have come to see the need for returning assets to Gainesville," said Collins in a phone interview.
Koskinen said in the letter that his agency is hopeful that more North Georgians will be able to solve their tax problems over the phone or online, which would further ease the pressure on the Gainesville office.
The office currently has one full-time employee, a security guard and one seasonal employee; Collins said he considers the problem to be within the IRS system itself, not with the local office or its employees.
"In general we consider a variety of factors, including the types of services requested, alternatives to being serviced, partner presence and volumes of taxpayers seeking service, when determining staffing levels at our (local offices)," wrote Koskinen.
He added that, generally speaking, the agency does not have enough resources for more than two full-time staffers outside of tax filing season.
"We'll probably do some one-on-one meetings to discuss these staffing levels. We did not get complete information about the things that we asked for, about where exactly they have their employees set up — in our opinion — to do customer service first," said Collins.
He said he does not consider this the final move in the back-and-forth with the IRS, but called it a "victory" thus far.
"We think it'll help the IRS. We think it'll help the situation with their employees, but most importantly it'll help tax payers know that they have a way to get to see that IRS office," said Collins.
Collins previously penned a letter to Koskinen — dated Aug. 12 — outlining the resident complaints about the office, which was only finding the resources to help between three and six people per day.
The IRS responded on Aug. 16, citing congressional budget cuts for the lack of staffing, something Collins later said was not an excuse for poor customer service.
