The IRS already faces a huge backlog of unprocessed returns, creating challenges as the new tax season begins.
Three-quarters of all Americans get an annual tax refund from the IRS, which often is a family's biggest check of the year. But with this tax season now open, taxpayers could see a repeat of last year's snarls in processing, when about Treasury Department officials warned on Monday that this year's tax seasonwith the IRS starting to process returns on January 24. That's largely due to the IRS' sizable backlog of returns from 2021.
But if that happens, that taxpayer's return may not match what the IRS has on file, leading to the return getting flagged — and delays in getting their return processed and their refund sent to them, said Larry Gray, a CPA and government relations liaison for the National Association of Tax Professionals.
"The first thing you know if you are going to cook a meal, you have to have the kitchen cleaned up from the last meal," said Mark W. Everson, vice chairman at Alliantgroup and former Commissioner of the IRS."It just snowballs into a terrible situation." Compounding the challenge, tax preparers told CBS MoneyWatch that it remains hard to reach IRS personnel on the phone. The IRS answered only about 1 in 9 taxpayer calls during fiscal year 2021, Collins reported."Many taxpayers are not getting answers to their questions and are frustrated," she noted.
Even aside from employee strains due to the pandemic, the IRS' staffing hasn't kept up with population growth. The agency's workforce is now the same size it was in 1970, despite the population growing by 60%. That means fewer workers to handle a greater volume of returns.
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