National Taxpayer Advocate assesses tax filing season

"The IRS Finished the Filing Season with Over 35 Million Tax Returns Awaiting Manual Reviews
Although most taxpayers successfully filed their returns and received their refunds, a historically high number did not. At the conclusion of the filing season, the IRS faced a backlog of over 35 million individual and business income tax returns that require manual processing – meaning that employee involvement is generally needed before a return can advance to the next stage in the processing pipeline. The backlog includes about 16.8 million paper tax returns waiting to be processed; about 15.8 million returns suspended during processing that require further review; and about 2.7 million amended returns awaiting processing. The backlog resulted largely from the pandemic-related evacuation order that restricted employee access to IRS facilities.
Processing backlogs matter greatly, the report says, because most taxpayers overpay their tax through wage withholding or estimated tax payments and are entitled to receive refunds when they file their returns. The government also uses the tax system to distribute financial benefits.
“For taxpayers who can afford to wait, the best advice is to be patient and give the IRS time to work through its processing backlog,” Collins wrote. “But particularly for low-income taxpayers and small businesses operating on the margin, refund delays can impose significant financial hardships.”
The IRS Received a Record Volume of Telephone Calls, and Only 7 Percent of Callers Reached a Telephone Assistor on the Accounts Management Lines
When a taxpayer needs general information or is responding to an audit or collection notice, the IRS’s toll-free lines are often the taxpayer’s first or second option. During the 2021 filing season, the IRS received 167 million telephone calls – over four times as many calls as during the 2019 filing season. IRS employees could not keep pace with this massive volume of calls, resulting in the poorest service ever.
The IRS reported a “Level of Service” on its Accounts Management telephone lines of 15 percent, with only seven percent of taxpayer calls reaching a telephone assistor. On the “1040” line, the most frequently called IRS toll-free number, taxpayers placed about 85 million calls, and only three percent (i.e., three out of 100) reached a telephone assistor.
“When so few callers can get through to a telephone assistor, problems remain unsolved and taxpayer frustration mounts,” Collins wrote."

What is this "refund" thing of which you speak? The IRS had no problem depositing my payment check in a timely manner. However, they appear to be a little slower than in past years sending me the "you owe $X more in penalty and interest" letter. Maybe they will forget? Or maybe they have a time limit on doing so? Hope springs eternal.

Is this number of returns requiring manual intervention consistent w/ prior years? It's just a delay because of wuflu and with employees not going into work? Or is the # of returns in context here higher than normal?

Also, in the context that the IRS has been politically weaponized, wonder what % of the returns are republican vs democrat (or assumed to be as such (ie - gun store). Or is there a real technical basis, agnostic to socio-political demographics, for these returns?

There's already a 4 page thread on this, my refund took 16 weeks instead of the usual 2-3:

https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...935/m/3270022184/p/1

Be patient. Help is on the way. .gov has their top men working on this.

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
Be patient. Help is on the way. .gov has their top men working on this.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
There's already a 4 page thread on this, my refund took 16 weeks instead of the usual 2-3:

My 2019 paper return too 11 months to process and receive the refund. There were no issues, other than the IRS sent home with full pay every single employee who would normally be dealing with these returns.

Twelve weeks today and holding steady. If you can actually get a human on the phone I applaud you for your creative ability and refusal to give up.

I'm at thirteen weeks and no estimated date available on the IRS website.

But Biden's request for 40 billion is just around the corner. Sadly, I doubt it will be spent in customer service.

I make sure I owe every year. Not enough to pay a penalty - just enough to not have to deal with these types of issues. And yes, as previously posted, the IRS deposits your check within minutes of receiving your return.

My strategy was the same as graniteguy’s until all these changes along with the birth of a child as well as BIG changes specifically with the CTC messed everything up. We are now (theoretically) receiving a decent return. I managed to reach an actual human at the IRS twice and both times they were not very helpful at all.

Don’t waste your time calling them, they won’t be able to give you any info on wait times.

Also figure in IRS sent out the alleged stimulus payments.

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
Be patient. Help is on the way. .gov has their top men working on this.

Yeah, that is what worries me.