Posted on 02/13/2022 3:50:58 PM PST by Libloather
Taxpayers hoping to treat themselves this year with their tax refund money may have to wait till next year for their reward after the IRS revealed its processing backlog is more than twice as big as it previously reported.
The Internal Revenue Service is still struggling to process close to 24 million tax return filings from last year, according to a report by the Washington Post.
That's more than twice as much as the 11.4 million unprocessed business and individual returns that the tax agency reported in mid-December 2021.
The bureaucratic snarl threatens to delay many tax refunds for 10 months or more.
Data crunched by the DC newspaper showed that 23.7 million individual and business returns were being held up because they require 'manual process' -- meaning someone in the tax office has to work on them rather than passing them through on the automated system.
This human bottleneck means that 2022 processing will also be affected, the Treasury Department warned in January.
There are 9.7 million paper returns waiting processing, 4.1 million had errors with stimulus payments, Covid-19 relief funds or other problems and 4.1 million returns were amended after being filed. There were 5.8 million sets of correspondence between the tax office and Americans that had to be resolved still before the filings were signed off.
National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins penned a letter recommending the IRS delay or suspend some tax collections and penalties because of the backlog.
'The coronavirus pandemic has created enormous challenges for taxpayers, tax professionals, and the IRS. It is time to take steps to ameliorate the situation,' the NATP letter stated. 'Implementing reasonable penalty relief measures, the IRS can offer immediately, are necessary to help not only taxpayers and tax professionals but also the IRS during these challenging times.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Apply you overage to this year’s tax, and cut your withholding. You get the money whether the iRS does anything or not.
Why are you giving Uncle Sam an interest free loan?
Probably a scam to have congress authorize and
hire more employees.
There it is— flat tax.
“Apply you overage to this year’s tax, and cut your withholding. You get the money whether the iRS does anything or not.”
Agree, for people with a steady income, they have to be pretty damn dumb to be owed a ‘refund’.
Our Govt is broke.
Getting a refund just means you gave the government an interest-free loan.
Maybe they should just cut out the Income Tax.
Let’s see...
The USPS is pretty f’d up these days,
The DHS is totally off the rails.
Meritless Garland’s DOJ/FIB are running without merit.
The NIH/CDC et. al are out of control.
Mayor Pete is off the butt edge.
The State Dept is trying to create War with the Rooskies.
Total gov’t meltdown.
But remember, they did cash all those checks even if they didn’t process your return. For the 2019 & 2020 tax years they cashed my check and then sent me letters that they didn’t receive my return! Luckily, I just made copies of my return and sent it to them. Like the VA did several years ago, I’m sure that they will eliminate the backlog by destroying the returns and requiring the preparers to resend them.
File electronically if possible. No paper.
My brother and SIL are still waiting on their refund. Wonder of government is getting the interest on all those refunds?
Why wait for a return? Just don’t overpay throughout the year.
I will never understand why people are so willing to make interest free loans to the Federal government.
I spoke to the IRS this week. We are waiting for a 13k refund. Crazy how late it is. It’s difficult to begin work on the current return when this is in limbo. Another thing to thank our administration for.
I always try to owe as much as possible without paying the penalty.
“I always try to owe as much as possible without paying the penalty.”
Bingo!
For the record, the main irs building in DC is essentially shutdown. The entrance may be staffed with x-ray machines and security, but no employees work there.
Any IRS responses or activity currently flows thru satellite offices.
[this is per citizen reporters reporting direct from DC. most other federal buildings are similar, though with a few exceptions]
According to both irs hrlp line and at least three notices on the irs website, anyone receiving a letter asking for another copy of their 2020 tax return should not submit it. Zillions of these mistaken notices were mailed out by mistake. So long as you sent it in ( and I’d want to have kept the receipt of course), it is ok. What they say happened is simple. They rip off your Cheque abs cash it. Then they just got backlogged on processing the attached returns.
Their computer sent out the notes without anybody catching the mistake. Their staff said that if you send in a second copy it will only mess things up worse and you might get two bills for anything they think you might still owe. And then if you agree and pay it — they’ll credit it only to one of the teo bills and keep sending you the other one.
Ymmv
It would be funny if it weren’t so —-classically governmentish.
Check with irs for yourself !
Smiles
same thing happened to me
they cashed my check and then 7 months later told me I did not file
I always keep copies
same here
Exactly.🤔
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