The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) faulted the IRS for letting taxpayer issues go unresolved for too long, partially because the service has trouble keeping track of them. The TIGTA report, released today, said that the number of issues that remain unresolved after 45 days days has grown from 40 percent in 2012 to 49 percent in 2015. While the IRS has made efforts to address this, TIGTA said this was not enough, given that the number of unresolved cases continues to grow. While there are guidelines requiring managers to monitor and reduce cases more than 45 days old, TIGTA said these are not always followed. This means that, according to TIGTA analysis of customer service representatives, at least 15 percent of cases more than 45 days old continue to go unresolved. For some customer service representatives TIGTA examined, this percentage is as high as 82 percent. 

TIGTA recommended that IRS managers provide and receive weekly reports to their employees on the status cases that have gone on for longer than 45 days without resolution. The IRS agreed with TIGTA on this suggestion.