Chris Ferguson was quoted in a Tax Notes article titled “The IRS Is Getting Fewer FOIAs. Why Aren’t Response Times Improving?”
Chris noted that the IRS’s FOIA Office historically has done a decent job in processing requests with the resources it has and that delays are often attributable to human factors. “There are some [IRS employees] who are diligent and prompt and communicative, and there are others who just seem to rely on the fact that you’re probably not going to go to court, and they just continue to seek extensions, or tell you that they’re granting themselves extensions,” he says.
As the article notes, the delays may come as a surprise to tax attorneys seeking information on behalf of clients, given FOIA requests have declined by nearly half in recent years, according to Treasury data cited in the article.
Still, response times to FOIA requests have worsened. The article notes that FOIA request responses took an average of 24 days in 2008 but nearly doubled to 47.81 days in 2024. Mass layoffs at the IRS in 2025 and the possibility of additional cuts to the agency’s funding may equate to even longer delays in processing existing and new FOIA requests.
Read the complete article here.
About Chris
Chris has over two decades of experience as a litigator, concentrating his practice on white-collar criminal defense as well as civil tax controversies, criminal tax fraud, and other regulatory enforcement matters. Chris also has extensive experience handling complex civil litigation and internal investigations.
