IRS BEHIND NEARLY 17 MILLION TAX RETURNS

IRS behind nearly 17 million tax returns. The IRS has seen the problems due to Covid and the government shutdown now have a serious impact on the 2022 filing season, as they still have to grapple with getting back unfiled tax returns form the previous two years completed. Angry taxpayers expecting tax refunds, will have a rude awakening when they realize the backlog will take till the end of 2022 to clear up. It is being addressed by the IRS, as they just hired 10,000 additional people, whose first job will be cleaning up the back taxes. They also are re-assigning several thousand additional IRS workers to help in the effort. Until then, expect long delays in getting through to the IRS, with only 12 percent ever getting thru in the year 2021, according to the National Taxpayer Advocate. Those numbers are not expected to improve until the backlog is cleared up, and possibly until late in 2023. IRS behind nearly 17 million tax returns.

"Over the last decade the IRS budget has been decimated, resulting in an agency that every American relies on being starved," said Alexandra LaManna, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Treasury Department, which overseas the IRS. "Some members of Congress have politicized the issue and blocked common sense advancements, like hiring more people to process tax returns and modernizing technology for partisan ideological reasons." The end of the argument seemed to be when the government had to spend more money on Covid, and the Biden Administration started a push to re-fund the agency and hire a large numbers of additional workers to beef up the Collection Division of the IRS.

The net result is going to be a new IRS, with upgraded computers, a larger workforce, and the ability to go after those who are gaming the system. A word to the wise, get your tax situation in order before that happens, otherwise additional IRS Collection Actions, such as tax liens and IRS Wage Garnishment notices, will force many Americans to seek the services of a Tax Resolution firm and possibly look at Tax Relief options, such as the IRS Fresh Start Program.