State Rep. Matthew Bierlein today criticized the Michigan Department of Treasury for continuing to string along residents who have questions regarding their tax returns, and their elected representatives who are asking questions on their behalf.

An email recently circulated by the department to legislative offices notes an internal restructuring that will divide time between new incoming cases and follow-ups. Despite impacted residents submitting their state tax returns before Michigan’s deadline nearly three months ago, the department is asking legislative offices for another two weeks to send out follow-ups and status updates to cases received in May and early June. In addition, offices were asked to refrain from sending email follow-ups within the first four weeks after a constituent submits a case. 

Bierlein joined fellow House Oversight Committee members last month for a hearing with officials from the department. Issues discussed included over 27,000 erroneous letters to taxpayers informing them they would be receiving a smaller refund than expected or that they owed more money in taxes, as well as people seeing significant delays receiving tax refunds, leading to constituents contacting their elected officials looking for assistance.

“My legislative office has continued to help people with their tax return concerns and the amount of issues people have had with the department compared to past years is frankly astonishing,” said Bierlein, of Vassar. “We have been involved with our constituents trying to get them answers and we can’t. Constituents have been contacting our offices saying they can’t get answers either, or they’re being directed to a website they are not able to access. Things are clearly not getting handled and the response from the department is ‘give us more time’ and ‘if you could contact us less, that would be great.’

“We heard in our Oversight Committee hearing with Treasury that they have all of this under control and issues were going to be rectified, but this email shows they are delaying even more. This is unacceptable customer service from the state to our constituents – many who are eligible for tax credits or are looking to help pay bills with money that is owed to them by the state.”

During committee testimony, Bierlein noted the dire situations of some Michigan residents and continued documented attempts to talk to someone at the department. A total of 11,000 combined calls were made to the department by just 65 individual callers. Bierlein said at the hearing the amount of calls his office has received regarding the status of tax returns had quintupled from the previous year.