Why Is IRS Collections Still Going Strong Despite the Layoffs?

0:00So, let's roll back the clock to last year, 2025, right? Layoffs, layoffs, if there's one word to summarize the IRS last year, it was layoffs, reductions in forest, yadda yadda yadda. Okay. But last year, choice to actually have had more clients than ever. The IRS collections train did not stop. They kept sending out notices, they kept doing levies, they kept rating bank accounts, garshing wages. Why? Why did all those layoffs really stop IRS collections? I mean, it would make sense, right? Oh, there's this big collections agency. Oh, it lost a ton of employees, thousands of employees. Why are they still collecting just as much? A couple of reasons. Well, for one thing, not all the layoffs were collections, folks, right? A lot of it was, you know, infrastructure, IT, HR, customer service, right?

1:06And so, not everyone laid off was in collections. Okay. Second thing is the fact that so many kind of call center people were laid off actually made it more difficult to deal with collections. Okay. So we're kind of feeling that. Third aspect is a lot of IRS collections are already automated. Okay. Those CP notices you get, 501, 503, 504, those are all just automated. CP stands for computer paragraph. It's all automated notices. You're on a cycle, right? Okay. You hit these many weeks. All right. Next notice goes out. Bam. Okay. So a lot, it's called the automated collection system. Automated, right? This is opposed to revenue officers. Yeah, I think we saw a revenue officer assignments dip last year. But not everybody has a revenue officer. Right. Most folks will the IRS are an automated collections. Okay. So, you know, if you're in something called automated collections,

2:09the fact that you're laying off some heads, you know, letting some heads roll, that's probably not going to affect the automated functions as much. Other, what else is automated at IRS? Right. ASFR, the automated substitute for return program. Automated. Right. Just a computer that takes all your W2 and 1099 data and spits out a tax return for you. I'm assuming you haven't filed your tax return on time. Right. Automated. Right. The IRS is going to, you know, then they got a, you know, send you notice an efficiency. Okay. Most folks aren't responding to that. Right. And then you don't respond to it. They assess the tax. And then where are you? You're automated collections now. You go from ASFR to ACS. So, you know, that's why despite heads rolling last year at the IRS, and then the more heads will roll this year, I don't know. I don't think we're going to really see a stop to the collection strain. Right. The IRS still has its mission.

3:10Was there fluff at the IRS? Sure. It's like there's probably fluff at every, you know, large, very large organization. You know, that has tens of thousands of employees. Sure. But I don't think we're really going to see this, you know, complete, you know, stop the train of IRS collections. We haven't seen it. We just haven't seen it, folks. You know, so that's why we're still doing what we're doing. That's why we're still offering these wonderful free consultations. So, those of you who owe the IRS owe your state at least $10,000 in back taxes. Or you have multiple years on file tax returns. You do not want to get caught up at that ASFR world. If either of those apply to you or both, you qualify for a free consultation with us here at Choice Tax relief. Give us a call 8668000 tax. That's 8668000829. Or you can go to Choice Tax relief.com, fill out the form of the website, and we will reach out to you. Thanks so much for watching, everybody. See you in the next video. Bye-bye.