While Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees are spending about half of their time on the Internet looking at sex, gambling, and stock trading websites or participating in chat rooms, the agency's level of service to taxpayers remains low, according to a recent study.

The study by the Treasury Department inspector general looked at how more than 16,000 IRS employees were spending their time over a period of a week and found that the employees studied spent 8,250 hours online – more than 51% of their time on personal matters.

These numbers equate to 238 employees a year doing nothing except surfing the Internet for personal use. More than 20% were using chat rooms and looking up personal information. Others were caught shopping online, gambling and downloading pornography.

These revelations were disclosed following findings that more than one third of taxpayers that attempted to call the IRS could not reach anyone. And the people that did reach a live IRS official were even less satisfied — on average, taxpayers believed that 47% of the answers they received were wrong.

In a separate report, the IRS inspector general found that 47 percent of 82,000 emails coming into the IRS involved non-business matters. Among the topics covered by the emails were daily joke services, high school reunion news, and music listserves.

While some personal email and Internet use is expected, this amount of use is ridiculous.

Over the past year, the IRS has posted mixed results in processing returns, providing services to taxpayers, and enforcing tax laws.

It is reasonable for taxpayers to expect a basic level of service from the nation's tax collectors. When you call them, you should expect that they will answer the phone and that they will give you the correct answer to a tax-related question.

IRS employees have a very difficult job. Let's face it — nobody likes to pay taxes. In order for citizens to have confidence in the system, the IRS has to stop making these dumb mistakes. It reduces the agency's credibility in the eyes of their employers — the American taxpayers.