Give this a try, it sometimes works: Refuse to push any buttons. Pretend you still have the last rotary dial phone in the known world, and that you have no idea what the recordings are asking you to do. Sometimes it will default to a human being, but not always. Did you try the IRS website? I doubt that would have the answers you need either, though.

I totally hear you on this complaint - sometimes your need just doesn't fit into one of their carefully crafted little boxes. Another one that drives me nuts is the voice-activated system, where they ask you to "speak" what you want. I called American Airlines once, and asked for information on a flight from Chicago, and no matter how many times I said Chicago, it kept saying "I'm sorry, I don't understand your request; please speak clearly" etc.
After I made enough "unintelligible noises" into the phone, it defaulted to a live human being who had absolutely no difficulty understanding my extreme Midwestern accent .