Janet Spagens (American) & Nancy Abramowitz (American) have published Low-Income Taxpayers and the Modernized IRS:  A View From the Trenches, 107 Tax Notes 1407 (June 13, 2005), also available on the Tax Analysts web site as Doc 2005-11024, 2005 TNT 113-38:

This article examines the continuing effects on low-income taxpayers of the 1998 IRS reorganization and computer modernization of the agency. Specifically, the article highlights the severe hardships that have been experienced by that segment of the taxpayer population resulting from agency efforts to streamline resolution of postfiling disputes. Those efforts include acceleration of the administrative process, centralization of agency function, elimination of local contracts, and increasing reliance on computer-generated correspondence. The authors believe that the net result for many taxpayers has been the trading of fairness for administrative efficiency and the contraction — and often denial — of taxpayer prepayment rights.