The Internal Revenue Service is still dealing with a backlog of unprocessed mail from 2020, hurting its efforts to provide help with COVID-19 relief payments and this year’s tax season.
A group of Republicans on the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee sent a
The problem isn’t only with the mail, which piled up last year in trailers outside IRS facilities until IRS employees could return to their offices and open it. While most of the millions of pieces of mail have reportedly been opened, much of it remains unprocessed. That’s causing headaches for taxpayers and tax professionals alike, who are coping with past due notices sent automatically by IRS computer systems, even when payments were sent months ago, according to the investigative news site
“Based on the latest numbers we have received, over 11 million individual and business returns remain unprocessed, even as the new tax filing season has already begun,” said the letter from the GOP lawmakers. “We have heard from many constituents who filed their taxes last spring but are still awaiting refunds. We certainly understand that the IRS currently has a number of important responsibilities — from processing the latest round of Economic Impact Payments to the recent Biden Administration Executive Order, to implementing other COVID-related legislative provisions — all while working to run a successful 2021 tax filing season.”
They asked Rettig to respond to questions on whether the IRS has a plan for addressing the unprecedented backlog of unprocessed tax returns while still fulfilling its other obligations, such as processing new returns for the current filing season. They also want to know what taxpayers should do if they have filed their 2019 returns on time, but still haven’t received their refunds, and how the IRS is going to communicate that to taxpayers. They also asked what the IRS will do to make sure individual taxpayers don’t suffer adverse consequences related to their 2020 returns due to delays in processing their 2019 returns.
Many taxpayers have been turning to the IRS’s Taxpayer Advocate Service for help, but that office too has encountered difficulties with helping taxpayers run the gauntlet.
“It goes without saying that the pandemic has been very different from the typical natural disasters that prompt the IRS to postpone deadlines,” wrote National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins in a
She noted that the IRS has
“This may be a good time for the IRS to reconsider some of its administrative practices regarding disaster relief to ensure taxpayers experiencing the COVID-19 emergency as well as natural disasters can meet their tax obligations,” she wrote. “One concern I’ve heard is the lack of IRS relief provided for some Public Assistance disasters, which raises the question for the IRS: should it be providing relief more often for disasters and emergencies not identified for Individual Assistance, similar to how it did for the COVID-19 disaster?”
The deadline for comments on the proposed disaster relief regulations is March 15. The IRS has scheduled a
