IRS steers taxpayers wrong, Treasury says.

Apparently, IRS tax help centers don't always help.

Treasury Department investigators recently found that the IRS tax help centers gave correct answers to only 57 percent of tax law questions.

The investigators, posing as confused taxpayers, found that IRS employees provide complete and correct answers to 45 percent of the questions, with an additional 12 percent being correct but incomplete.

IRS employees told the investigators to do their own research in IRS publications 12 percent of the time, a practice the IRS has banned.

Incorrect answers were given to 28 percent of the questions, mostly dealing with the earned income tax credit, education credit and dependents.

The IRS disputes the results, saying that the accuracy rate is closer to 67 percent, when you exclude instances where taxpayers were referred to other publications or could not get help.