Tired of Waiting on Hold With the IRS? You May Soon Be In Luck

The IRS has started testing callback technology on a limited pool of taxpayers—a significant step toward achieving one of the goals in the agency’s plan to upgrade its aging technology systems.

Giving taxpayers the option of getting called back, rather than having to sit on hold to talk to the Internal Revenue Service, could ease one of its most vexing customer-service complaints. Long wait times are a problem on the minds of tax advisers—many of whom are still dealing with a backlog of issues they need to discuss with the IRS following the recent 35-day government shutdown.

“The concept of ...