It started with a simple request: I needed a copy of my business’s EIN from the IRS. A month and countless attempts later, I finally got on a callback list—not an actual call, just a chance to be called back. Anyone who’s tried to reach a state or federal agency in the last few years knows the routine: endless hold music, cheery-but-increasingly-robotic recorded apologies (“Due to unusually high call volume…”), and the eventual click as the line goes dead. When you’re lucky, you get a callback, sometimes days later, at an unpredictable hour.

Tax season, pandemic, or not, the story is the same. “I just want to talk to a human being,” said John, a small business owner from Queens, who spent three hours on hold with New York State’s Department of Taxation and Finance before being disconnected. “It’s almost like they don’t want us to reach them at all.” His frustration isn’t unique. It points to a broader failure in basic access.

The IRS reported earlier this year that it receives more calls than it can handle. The numbers are enormous—tens of millions of inquiries, millions of taxpayers waiting for help. But if you’re on the other end of the line, none of those stats matter. What matters is that your payroll is frozen because you can’t get your EIN, or your client is racking up tax penalties while you wait for a human to pick up.

Even tax professionals, who are supposed to have a direct line, aren’t immune. “I’m an Enrolled Agent, and I have a dedicated number for New York State audit reps,” said Rachel, an accountant in Albany. “I’ve spent entire afternoons listening to muzak, only to be dropped after two hours. Meanwhile, my client’s penalties keep piling up. It feels like we’re being set up to fail.”

The government’s answer is always the same: they’re understaffed, underfunded, overwhelmed. There’s some truth to that. The IRS’s workforce has shrunk in the last decade, even as its responsibilities have grown. The pandemic made everything worse. But for callers, none of that changes the central problem: basic access still fails. You can’t plead “high volume” forever. At some point, it just sounds like “We don’t care.”

Some agencies have embraced technology, but often in frustrating ways. Online portals crash, forms vanish into the digital ether, and email support isn’t even an option for most tax issues. “When you call, they tell you to use the website,” said Martin, a retired teacher from Brooklyn. “The website tells you to call. It’s a circle of hell Dante never imagined.”

The stakes aren’t just about inconvenience. Late fees and tax penalties accrue while taxpayers and their representatives wait for answers. One Enrolled Agent told me about a client who was assessed over $5,000 in penalties because no one at the state would answer questions about a payment that had already been made. “They don’t answer, but the penalty clock never stops,” she said.

There is a growing sense that the system is broken not by accident, but by design or neglect. That is the real issue here. “If a private company treated customers like this, they’d be out of business,” said John. “But I don’t have a choice. I can’t shop for a new IRS.”Public-facing agencies used to pride themselves on accessibility, at least in theory. Now, the best you can hope for is a callback—maybe. For many, it feels like another crack in the social contract. We pay taxes, we fund these agencies, and we’re told to wait indefinitely for service. Or worse, to stop asking for help altogether. That is what makes this more than an inconvenience.r.

There’s no easy fix. Staffing up takes time and money, and technology only works when it’s built thoughtfully. But the first step is honesty. Agencies should stop pretending that help is always just a phone call away. For most Americans, it isn’t. Until something changes, the hold music plays on, and taxpayers keep paying—for the privilege of waiting.