I had a return check delayed by almost 6 months once because I had also amended a previous return and sent them a check. Apparently they were so confused by it that they just cashed the check and then waited patiently for us to repeatedly call their phone tree and wait 8 hours a day for a week before someone finally picked up and helped us.
Good thing we just cut IRS staffing significantly so I can now wait a lot longer for the same thing.
I think some problems are made worse with more money.
For example, having enough staff to review messages manually and process things manually needs more funding to scale. Automating processes takes fewer people so there’s resistance to “automating away” jobs instead of just having the manual people focus on other things.
Good thing we just cut IRS staffing significantly so I can now wait a lot longer for the same thing.