Sixty-five changes to how the Internal Revenue Service treats taxpayers cleared the Senate on Sept. 30, 2026, with no senator objecting. None of them is law. The package, called the Taxpayer Assistance and Service Act, now sits with the House, and nothing in it takes effect unless the House acts and the bill reaches the president, according to the Senate Finance Committee’s announcement.
What the Senate passed
The Senate approved the bill unanimously, after the Finance Committee advanced it 26-1 in July. Sen. Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican who chairs the committee, said in the announcement that “taxpayers deserve a tax system that is competent, responsive and works for them.” Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the committee’s top Democrat, called it “the direct result of years of bipartisan work.”
The Senate did not write a new bill. It put the package into H.R. 5349, the Tax Court Improvement Act, a bill the House had already passed, according to Thomson Reuters. That changes what comes next: the House has to agree to the Senate’s version, or the two chambers have to work out a different one.
Where the House stands
The House is out until after the midterm elections. KPMG’s tax newsletter reports that it returns on Nov. 9, 2026. No House vote on the Senate text has been announced. Pete Sepp, the president of the National Taxpayers Union, said in an Oct. 1 statement that the House may pass modified portions of the package when it returns, and that more work between the two chambers is needed. Crapo said he wants to get the reforms “across the finish line this Congress.”
The question for most households is what would reach them if the House does act. The changes that touch ordinary filers are on phone service, online records, collection and refunds, and the bill’s text sets a clock for each one that starts at enactment.
Until the House acts, a refund that stalls or a letter that changes it runs under today’s rules, not the bill’s. The IRS Refund Recovery Kit includes a refund status tracker spreadsheet and a notice decoder for the letters the IRS sends now.
Get the notice decoder and refund tracker for today’s IRS letters →
Phone lines and online accounts
The bill’s Senate text has several service provisions. Section 102 would have the IRS post a dashboard on its phone lines that get at least 200,000 calls a year, starting 12 months after enactment. Section 104 is a statement of the sense of Congress, not a command: callbacks by 2028 for calls not answered within five minutes. Section 105 deals with online access to records covering the preceding six-year period.
Thomson Reuters adds that the package expands online account portals, increases IRS digitization, and extends the mailbox rule to electronic submissions and payments. The mailbox rule treats a filing as on time based on when it was sent.
Payment plans and hardship cases
Section 107 would waive the fee on installment agreements for people whose adjusted gross income does not exceed 250 percent of the poverty level. It would apply to agreements entered into 12 months after enactment. Section 108 would require a program, within 12 months, to find taxpayers likely to be in hardship and steer them toward partial-payment agreements, offers in compromise or currently-not-collectible status.
The package also requires written supervisory approval before penalties are assessed, and it frees up matching funds for low-income taxpayer clinics, per Thomson Reuters.
Tax preparers and Tax Court
Preparer rules are a large part of the 65. Under section 502, preparers who fail to meet the number requirements would face $250 per failure, capped at $75,000 a year, and the IRS would have 24 months to set up a program that validates electronic filing numbers. Thomson Reuters says preparers would also face background checks and continuing education to get a preparer tax identification number.
The Tax Court pieces include authority over refund suits of up to $2 million and a higher small-case threshold, from $50,000 to $100,000. The National Association of Tax Professionals says the legislation also covers refund tracking and collection changes, though the Senate text and the committee announcement do not break these down for a refund filer.
What stays the same until the House acts
For a taxpayer waiting on a refund today, none of this changes the process. The IRS’s own tools still apply, and the agency’s free refund status page remains the place to check. Notice response dates are the ones printed on the letter, not dates from a bill.
The useful habit is to track the bill by its next steps. Those are a House vote on the Senate’s version of H.R. 5349, a return to the Senate if the House changes it, and a signature. Each step would be announced by the committees, and the Senate Finance Committee’s site posts its own releases.
Each provision also has its own clock. The fee waiver and the phone dashboard would start 12 months after the bill becomes law, and the preparer validation program 24 months after. A provision that passes in November would not reach filers until late 2027 or later.
The House is out until Nov. 9
Any of the 65 changes waits at least until the House returns on Nov. 9, and a refund held up this fall will not wait. The IRS Refund Recovery Kit has a notice decoder for reading the IRS letter on a held or reduced refund, and a 20-page walk-through of the refund stages, so the response is based on the rules that apply today.
Read a held or reduced refund letter with the Refund Recovery Kit →
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
