I started my tax career answering questions at an IRS toll-free site. From there I went to National Office, where I helped write the test questions that GAO used to determine IRS accuracy rates by IRS Taxpayer Service employees. Since you have demonstrated your faith in calling IRS for answers to tax questions, you can have faith in my answers too. I have learned even more since I left.

At IRS we had contempt for practitioners who could not do their own research. Back then, though, the resources available to the public were not as handy as those IRS publications, and the CCH Master Tax Guide, that we had at the phone sites. IRS has about 75,000 employees. Many of those with the least training, especially the seasonal ones, are assigned to answering phones. Why would anyone expect them to have expertise on a law signed a month ago? On the other hand, most of them have enough sense not to read something into the law that is not there.

This whole non-issue started when someone noticed that zero-AGI returns cannot be e-filed. That would include returns with EIC based on 2019 income, as well as returns eligible for the recovery rebate credit. How that situation got perverted into one involving zero-earned income returns, maybe a psychologist could explain.