Consumer Confidential: IRS help, high-Voltage smart phones, bad smokes

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Here’s your whoppingly Wednesday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:

-- Looking for help from the Internal Revenue Service with your taxes? Good luck getting through by phone. The IRS estimates that only about 70% of callers get through to a living, breathing person -- an oddly optimistic estimate, some taxpayers who’ve spent epic intervals on hold might say. In fact, the agency says those who get through typically wait about 12 minutes on hold -- another optimistic perspective. So what should you do? The IRS suggests you root around for help on its website. Good luck with that as well.

-- This is kind of cool: General Motors says it’s tucking some new technology into its planet-friendly new Volt electric cars that will allow drivers to unlock doors with a smart phone. You could also fire up the air conditioner by remote, perhaps from miles away (which would kind of go against the whole green thing you’ll have going as a Volt owner). Now if GM could just cook up an app that’d slice through L.A. traffic.

-- And as if anyone needed an additional reason to quit smoking, researchers at UCLA say that cigarettes can increase your risk of blindness, even after age 80. ‘The take-home message is that it’s never too late to quit smoking,’ said Dr. Anne Coleman, a professor of ophthalmology at the Jules Stein Eye Institute. ‘We found that even older people’s eyes will benefit from kicking the habit.’ Better still, going tobacco-free will help you become an older person in the first place (which is a good thing, considering the alternative).

-- David Lazarus