Erin Collins, National Taxpayer Advocate, issued her mid-year report to Congress. Ms. Collins shares her great concern over the IRS’ backlog, and the long delays taxpayers face. Part of the problem is the number of returns requiring manual processing. At the end of the 2021 filing season, the IRS had a backlog of 35.8 million tax returns requiring manual processing, even though about half were filed electronically. A bigger problem for the IRS is the paper processing which will continue throughout this year. As of April 2022, the IRS still had over 6.2 million unprocessed original returns and another 2.6 million unprocessed amended individual returns on which taxpayers were still waiting for refunds from their 2020 return filings.
Other areas of concern include delays in processing taxpayer correspondence, and low levels of telephone service. The IRS is taking steps with significant additional hiring, technological advances, and other areas to provide service to taxpayers, but it will take time for the changes to resolve the current problems.
To read the full report, click here.
