Leaderboard

"As of March 4, 2023, taxpayers made a total of 17 million attempts to contact the IRS by calling the various customer service toll-free phone assistance lines. The IRS reported that 4.4 million calls were answered with automation, and telephone assistors answered 3.5 million calls and provided an 80.6% level of service with a five-minute average speed of answer." Now I understand. They included every automated response as a successfully answered call

"Thanks to Inflation Reduction Act resources, the IRS delivered dramatically improved service in Filing Season 2023.The IRS achieved 87% Level of Service, exceeding Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen’s goal of 85%. The agency also answered 2 million more calls through live assistance, cut phone wait times to four minutes from 27 minutes, served 100,000 more taxpayers in-person, digitized 80 times more returns than in 2022 through the adoption of new scanning technology, cleared the backlog of unprocessed 2022 individual tax returns with no errors, launched two new digital tools, and enabled a new direct-deposit refund option. This marks a vast improvement over 2022, when, due to a lack of resources, the IRS hit just 15% Level of Service to taxpayers and millions of refunds were delayed for months." I made several time consuming calls regarding Form 941 last year , but no calls this year. I still have a unresolved CP 2000 that I originally responded to by mail back in December 2021?

Just arrived at vacation home on Friday afternoon. Long awaited R and R. We were waiting for repair man for WiFi Thermostat. Had just finished unpacking and I plugged in my 17 inch laptop. We were standing about 4 feet away and heard what sounded like a shotgun blast. Turned around to find my computer and anything near it completely engulfed in two to three foot flames. My husband grabbed a towel and smothered some of the flames and out the door with it onto the lawn. The battery had exploded. I still haven't gotten over the shock. There went my 17" Win 10 Acer laptop that I loved. Just be aware to never walk away from your laptop when it is plugged in. We don't know what happened or why, but we could have lost our house if we had not been right there when it happened. I am thankful and sad at the same time. I could have been badly burned or whatever. Hot, flying plastic is imbedded in a few things. Of course, Homeowners insurance is $1000 deductible. Hardly pays to file a claim. Just want you all to be AWARE!

My experience is batt failure when using a knock off replacement, or early lion batts. On both cases, it was likely thermal runaway, which is the internal bms failing to prevent overheating. Charger and power incoming should never cause an issue with the batt as the bms should be the batt manager. I looked into building my own system for our rv, same as people also do for off grid. The key was always the bms. For prebuilt batts, the off grid experts (who post tear downs) always key on the bms. The cells themselves are only made in a couple of places and the concern is first or second quality, and volt matching. (CATL is the biggest and arguably best tech at present.) For a laptop, secondary monitoring is tougher. But, the surface line has charge limits, with the current being the new norm of 80%. This setting is before the bms as far as I know so it serves as a second safety

How old was the laptop Acer?

Thank you all for your concerns and comments. Since I am on vacation for this week, I am down to my Surface Pro 3 which has had very little use and is a little hard to get used to, though I do have the keyboard. Nevertheless, I am a little afraid to even turn it on. The laptop that blew was in perfect condition with not a lot of hours on it. There were no signs of warping, leaking or swelling. My Granddaughter tells me that her office is constantly watching for warpage of keyboards as the first sign. When I get home, I will try to send you pictures of the junk.

How scary! So thankful it wasn't worse for you, bad enough as it already is. I just returned from my dive trip to Papua New Guinea and had to remember to have all dive light and other lithium batteries in my carry on luggage. Your experience drives home the point about the dangers of these potential battery fires. Good reminder about laptop batteries, I would not have considered that but will now. And remind my husband who leaves his on all the time. Yikes! Now to check everything else that might have lithium batteries. Try to enjoy the rest of your vacation!

Wow, I am glad it wasn't worse! There have been stories in the news about fires started by lithium batteries in electric bicycles and scooters exploding.

We knew what you maetn or meant. Or whatever! Best way to find errors and typos is to hit "Send" (or "Enter"). Works every bleeping time!

Yeah, I wish our site would allow editing of our posting up to 20 minutes later.

* Can't. I always proofread ten minutes after I hit sned.

They still can find a payment from a spouse with a flashlight and both hands.

I am thinking that their percentage went up because people have decided that it is a waste of time to try to contact them so they got fewer calls.

Just don't hold your breath!

I will believe it when I see it.