IRS Says Speakerphones OK

Submitted by Chris Gaetano on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 15:42

The IRS will be alerting its employees that it’s not okay to withhold telephone assistance from taxpayers if they happen to be on speakerphone, according to Dow Jones. The move came in response to the recent release of the Taxpayer Advisory Panel’s 2010 report, which noted that some IRS staff would refuse to help taxpayers over the phone if they were on speaker, with some assistors demanding that callers turn it off if they want to get service. The IRS, in response, agreed that the Internal Revenue Manual used by staff does not specifically prohibit the use of speaker phones, so the service agreed to send out a Service-wide Electronic Research Program alert to remind people that they are not, in fact, allowed to demand that callers turn off speakerphone as a condition for help.

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