Treasury warns of 'enormous challenges' this tax-filing season that could delay refunds [View all]
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/
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