They’re actually fantastic and have a genuine desire to arrive at the correct number. I had one take over an hour on the phone to explain to me the logic behind the IRS’s position and, once it became clear that the problem was with a corrupted data import and the cost basis was incorrectly computed, took two more hours of his own time without me having to wait on the phone to arrive at the conclusion that the IRS actually owed me money. He could have resolved the call immediately by saying that he saw my position and that he’d cancel the correction and I probably would’ve accepted it. Instead, he went the extra mile and figured out the correct refund, costing the government hundreds of dollars and two more hours of his time.

I suspect the IRS gets a bad rap because people don’t like owing money and the IRS is usually right when they send corrections, but my experience left me with nothing but respect for their front-line support. To remain as friendly and courteous as they were considering the rage that must be directed towards them on a daily basis is pretty impressive.

I've had to work with the IRS in two separate instances in my life and both times they were helpful, patient, and went above and beyond to make sure matters were resolved properly.

My experience is the IRS telling me I owe them $20,000, me calling them three separate times and having estimated wait times of over 3+ hours each time, finally just giving up turning it over to my accountant, who charged me $400 to find out that in fact the IRS owed me $3,000. So I dunno, to me I think it's a pretty good comparison, but obviously from the other replies mileage varies.

Point taken, and having seen published phone numbers for various specialty IRS attorneys I did actually think about making a quip to that effect. Furthermore, the IRC itself is more understandable than Google's (et al) "AI"-dartboards.

But the comparison is still appropriate due to the sheer gravity of both situations. If your issue hadn't been worked out over the phone (say it required more subjective interpretation), you likely would have hired someone. Nobody wants to get walked on by an 800lb gorilla.