Reporter Stephanie Mencimer writes that she received a notice from the Internal Revenue Service claiming she underpaid her 2025 taxes, even though the agency had not credited payments she had already made. After two hours on hold, she gave up. A few days later, a recorded message about "high call volume" disconnected her. Her accountant said even dedicated lines for tax practitioners were not working, leaving serious issues unresolved with "no contact available at all." Mencimer said she "realized that the IRS was finally imploding." It's what everyone warned would happen when Elon Musk used his DOGE program to reduce the IRS by 25,000 people. It was about one-third of the entire IRS.