Washington — The Internal Revenue Service’s tax return backlog exceeded 20 million last year, despite the Biden administration’s efforts to process and refund more quickly. National taxpayer advocates said in a report It was released on Wednesday.
The report provides a critical assessment of the Biden administration’s treatment of the IRS, which has been burdened by recent staff and funding shortages, while being responsible for providing financial relief during a pandemic.
An independent monitoring body of the tax authorities said the IRS was slow to use the relief fund it received as part of the $ 1.9 trillion stimulus that Congress passed in March 2021. Technology changes that may mitigate the backlog.
“The ever-increasing backlog is of great concern, primarily because millions of taxpayers have been waiting for repayments for more than six months,” said national taxpayer advocate Erin M. Collins writes in the report.
A year ago, the IRS had 20 million unprocessed tax returns. Its backlog increased to 21.3 million as of the last week of May.
The IRS disputed taxpayer advocates’ findings, stating that more recent data up to June 10 showed that unprocessed revenues were below 20 million, a slight decrease from June 2021. I did.
“The IRS is committed to ensuring sound inventory by the end of this year, and the processing of unprocessed tax returns continues to make strong progress,” IRS representative Jodie Reynolds said in a statement.
Paper tax returns continue to stall the IRS as documents need to be manually posted to outdated computer systems.
Communication is also a major obstacle, according to Collins, where taxpayers are trying to reach customer service agents by phone, waiting an average of 29 minutes. Of the 73 million calls received by the IRS, only 10% were answered by the agent. In both respects, these indicators are worse than last year.
The Biden administration is demanding more resources for the IRS and has demanded $ 80 billion over a decade to review its technology and strengthen its staff. Democrats have held responsibility for the agency’s problems with the Republicans. Republicans have long sought to run out of money and blamed political prejudice against conservatives.
The Treasury, which oversees the Internal Revenue Service, expects on Tuesday that government agencies will soon finish processing all personal tax returns received last year and that business returns filed in 2021 will be completed “shortly thereafter.” He said he was. A senior Treasury official said the IRS had already stepped up recruitment and diverted employees to clear the backlog.
The IRS has had a hard time hiring staff, even with the money. The report said the agency had set a goal of hiring 5,473 people at its submission processing facility this year, but so far it has only hired 2,056 people.
For taxpayers, the IRS dysfunction is frustrating because it is waiting for a refund when inflation is skyrocketing.
Collins estimated that 9 million taxpayers are experiencing delays in refunds. More than 300,000 victims of personal information theft must wait at least a year.
Proponents of taxpayers have suggested that the IRS work to automate the processing of paper tax returns and make it easier for taxpayers to file electronically. Reliably answering the phone is also a priority.
“If a private company doesn’t answer 9 out of 10 customer calls, the customer will go elsewhere,” Collins said. “Of course, it’s not an option for US taxpayers, so it’s important to have more telephone call center staff to handle the volume of calls the IRS receives.”
