The Internal Revenue Service will kick off the approaching tax season with a backlog of at least 10 million unprocessed returns from last year, according to a new report by the national taxpayer advocate.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/business/irs-backlog-tax-returns-2021.html?smid=url-share
The Internal Revenue Service will kick off the approaching tax season with a backlog of at least 10 million unprocessed returns from last year, according to a new report by the national taxpayer advocate.
The pile of returns remaining are from the “most challenging year taxpayers and tax professionals have ever experienced,” the advocate, Erin M. Collins, wrote in her annual report. Although the backlog is not too different from last season’s, it is a far higher number than the unprocessed returns the I.R.S. typically faced before the pandemic. One big reason for the pileup, according to the report, is that the federal government charged the I.R.S. with administering various stimulus payments and other programs during the pandemic. That meant the agency, which has had its budget and workforce shrink in recent years, had to reallocate a lot of resources to carry out those financial relief programs.