Treasury warns of 'enormous challenges' this tax-filing season that could delay refunds

[former9thward]

Source: Washington Post

Treasury Department officials on Monday said that the Internal Revenue Service will face “enormous challenges” during this year’s tax filing season, warning of delays to refunds and other taxpayer services.

In a phone call with reporters, Treasury officials predicted a “frustrating season” for taxpayers and tax preparers as a result of delays caused by the pandemic, years of budget cuts to the IRS, and the federal stimulus measures that have added to the tax agency’s workload.

Typically, IRS officials enter filing season with an unaddressed backlog of roughly 1 million returns. This year, however, the IRS will enter the filing season facing “several times” that, Treasury officials said, although they declined to give a more precise estimate.

The IRS closed last filing season with more than 35 million unprocessed returns — a fourfold increase from the last year before the pandemic. As the backlog increased, the IRS also failed to respond to the enormous increase in calls for assistance. Only 9 percent of calls were answered by an IRS customer service representative, while only 3 percent were answered for the 1040 support line for individual income tax returns, according to the National Taxpayer Advocate, a watchdog group.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/01/10/treasury-irs-filing-season/

[gab13by13]

1. Oh boy,

I have been doing paper returns since I retired and last year it took 3 months to get my return, may have to e-file like they want you to do.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

14. You'll like it. I was able to file online for tax year 2020.

For several years prior, there had been one reason or another why I could do that, but for tax year 2020, I was able to file online.

If you can do this, it's the way to go. The computer spots problems and won't let you submit your returns until you've corrected those mistakes. It will find minor things that you overlooked. You left a line blank, or the amounts on one line don't match the amounts on another, even though they should.

Happy New Year.

[Hoyt]

2. Hope they get this sorted out.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. We're still waiting for our tax return from 2020 to be processed (and we're expecting a refund)...

And the IRS states to not refile a return (we thought perhaps the return was lost in the mails), so we're in limbo land.

Good grief, how long will this mess go on until it's finally resolved? How does one do their return for 2021, the anticipated refund has not been refunded yet, and so you can't declare the 2020 refund as income for the 2021 return, and then ironies of ironies, you'll have to, in doing the 2021 returns do the same thing, have an anticipated refund of the 2021 return (anticipating that we've overpaid this year's return too.

Thus, we will have two years' worth of completed returns in the IRS' hands, that we won't see a dime yet (until they send the refunds). This is, by the way, equal to one year's worth of tax payments. Kind of a big amount to us.

I wonder if I should contact my Congress persons and see what they can do?

[PSPS]

4. "years of budget cuts to the IRS"

This is what happens when the crooks (i.e., the GOP) hold the purse strings of the police department (i.e., the IRS.)

[Calista241]

5. If true, this is a catastrophe. n/t

[Farmer-Rick]

6. The IRS is a purposely incompetent executive branch service

First they always always go after the little guy and get back pennies, usually missing massive criminal activity by people like Trump and the Koch bros.

Second their filing regulations and tax laws are so messed up and convoluted that unless you have immense training you probably did your taxes wrong.

Third their hotline is useless and gives out wrong information regularly.

In most civilized countries, the government comes to you and tells you what to pay not the other way around. The IRS is useless.

[TexasBushwhacker]

7. Personal tax returns are usually not that complicated

Last edited Tue Jan 11, 2022, 11:45 AM - Edit history (1)

Most people who are W2 employees or retired can do their own taxes with an online program like TurboTax or TaxAct. It's the returns for self employed individuals and businesses that can get complicated.

[Farmer-Rick]

9. Yeah, I got audited doing my own taxes.

It was a straight forward retiree return. Did it on paper like I always do. You can keep those on line programs that feed my info to every robo caller in the world.

They found I owed $100 more and they owed me $500.

There were 3 auditors going over my taxes. I barely make $50,000 a year. They spent hours looking back 3 years to only owe me $400. Bunch of buffoons. Maybe they should have spent all that time on Trump's returns or a Koch bro.

Why don't they just tell us what we owe and be done with it? This is a little game of gotcha they play on average people.

[TexasBushwhacker]

10. It IS frustrating!

I work for a CPA and one of the things we do is answer letters our clients get from the IRS. I would say it's about 50/50 between who made the mistake. Our biggest issue is people who don't have their shit together and ask us to file an extension for them, but even when we remind them that it doesn't extend their time to file taxes that are due, they still wait. So then they want to know why they were charged interest and penalties. Well ....

I imagine that the IRS has some kind of algorithm that tells them that the likelihood of actually recovering money is greater from the little guys who can't afford to fight it than from the Trumps and Kochs. They may right, but they need to throw in a fairness factor into their algorithm. That, and the fact that people like Trump will continue to cheat until they are caught.

[Farmer-Rick]

11. It's designed to purposely avoid holding the filthy rich accountable

For their fair share of taxes.

"Corporations and the wealthy are the biggest beneficiaries of the IRS’ decay. Most Americans’ interaction with the IRS is largely automated. But it takes specialized, well-trained personnel to audit a business or a billionaire or to unravel a tax scheme — and those employees are leaving in droves and taking their expertise with them. For the country’s largest corporations, the danger of being hit with a billion-dollar tax bill has greatly diminished. For the rich, who research shows evade taxes the most, the IRS has become less and less of a force to be feared."

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted/amp

Why doesn't the IRS just tell us what we owe and quit playing games with us?

[TexasBushwhacker]

12. Actually, you can request they do your personal return for you

They'll use the standard deduction and whatever 1099s and W2s they've received. They wouldn't be able to say it was done wrong that way!

[Farmer-Rick]

13. You can????

Last edited Tue Jan 11, 2022, 05:33 PM - Edit history (2)

I'm going to sign up for it.

It looks like free file isn't ready yet. I'm at the IRS site and they say:

"Free File is Now Closed
Check back January 2022 to prepare and file your Federal taxes for free."

https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free

Not sure this is the IRS free tax preparation. There are so many that want to charge me. I hope I found the right one.

Also they say nothing about what happens if you are audited and using their service.

I had to pay my accountant $75 last year for a simple single page form.

[TexasBushwhacker]

15. Here you go

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/free-tax-return-preparation-for-qualifying-taxpayers

[Farmer-Rick]

16. Thanks so much.

That is great.....never knew I could do it for free.

[TexasBushwhacker]

17. Yeah, they usually have retired tax preparers

doing them for senior citizens at public libraries. My uncle, a retired public school principal, even went to H&R Block school so that he could help out.

[EastMeetsWest]

18. In Japan, we have "Kakutei Shinkoku",

確定申告, where you go to, usually, your local city hall and give your tax receipts, W2 forms, etc., to a representative of the Japanese version of the IRS, who then guides you through the filing process. If you are entitled to a refund, you'll get it in your bank account within a month or so after filing.

[TexasBushwhacker]

8. If you expect a refund, e-file if at all possible

It's your best chance of getting your refund sooner rather than later. Everyone who received the third stimulus payment and/or advanced child tax credits should be getting letters from the IRS stating the amounts they received. Hang onto those letters, because you will need those figures on your return.

The IRS will begin processing e-filed returns on January 24th.