Did you have to mail your 2020 tax return to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) instead of filing it electronically? Then you may be one of nearly 24 million taxpayers who are still waiting for their returns to be processed. This has caused tax refunds to be delayed for ten months or more.
Here are a just few interesting points:
- This backlog may further slow service in the 2022 filing season.
- Thousands of IRS employees worked from home for months during the pandemic without access to returns, audits and other business causing productivity to nosedive.
- 1,200 employees have been temporarily reassigned to help with this back log; the agency has only been able to fill fewer than 200 of the 5,000 open positions across the United States left behind due to retirements, departures and transfers to other departments.
- Severe hiring shortages, inefficient practices and old equipment are many challenges the agency faces.
- Returns are processed in the order in which they were are received.
- Automated collection notices have been suspended.
A coalition has been formed recently to pressure the agency for relief. Their advice for everyone is to “stay patient.”
Please click here to read about this backlog.
Sources: North Carolina Association of Certified Public Accountants, Chartered Institute of Management Accounts and The Washington Post
