A study from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that IRS service improved this filing season, helped in part by the $290 million in additional funding it received in December. Compared to last year's tax season, the average wait time to speak to an IRS representative on the phone has dropped to nine minutes, from 28, which the GAO said was an improvement of about 70 percent. There was also a 33 percent improvement in level of service overall compared to last year, said the GAO. 

The GAO also said that filing was going relatively smooth this year, and while there was a short system outage in February, it had little impact on the overall processing of returns and refunds.