The IRS, for some now has experienced a major backlog of unfinished tax returns dating back to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020. It appears that some ground is being made up as the IRS is closing in on finally clearing out the unfinished returns received in 2021.
The IRS’ Announcement
The IRS announced on Tuesday, that they expect to finish processing all the returns they received from last year’s season by the end of this week. As of June 10th, they have processed upwards of 4.5 million of the 4.7 million individual returns that they received. They also mentioned that they have successfully been able to process the “vast majority” of the returns filed from this 2022 tax year which is over 143 million and $298 billion in refunds being issued. It is important to note, that the IRS is only referring to individual returns at this time, with business paper returns filed in 2021 still caught up in the backlog (although those returns are the next thing to be cleared).
How They Stopped the Bleeding
The IRS has relied on overtime staff and also deployed multiple “surge teams” deployed in offices around the country to help combat the backlog. The IRS has received sustained funding from the government to help them continue adding more employees to process those tax returns. The House Appropriations Committee has also announced that the IRS will be receiving a $1 billion increase in its topline budget for 2023.
“IRS employees have been working tirelessly to process these tax returns as quickly as possible and help people who are waiting on refunds or resolution of an account issue,” says IRS Commissioner, Chuck Rettig. He also mentioned the agency should be in a “healthy” state to deal with returns for the next filing season.
Wrap Up
The IRS has taken a lot of heat over the last couple of years for its neglect of taxpayers’ returns due to the pandemic and short staffing issues. It is nice, however, to see that they are getting on top of these unfiled returns for the 2021 year. It also seems as though they are pretty on top of this year’s returns in comparison to last year. If you have any questions on tax returns it might be a good idea to call a trusted financial expert.