Agency is still catching up on 2020.
Tax filing season for 2021 tax returns will begin on Monday, January 24, 2022, the Treasury Department announced. However, the office said taxpayers and tax preparers face a challenging filing season because of the coronavirus and a lack of resources at the IRS.
The Internal Revenue Service is continuing to play catch-up from the height of the pandemic in 2020, when mail centers were shut down for a month. Meanwhile, more than 20 percent of IRS service workforce has been unable to work due to health reasons related to the pandemic over the last two years.
In the past decade, the IRS budget has also been cut by nearly 20 percent, and Taxpayer Assistance Centers decreased to the point where less than a third as many taxpayers are able to receive face-to-face assistance from the IRS than in 2016.
According to the Treasury Department, the IRS workforce is now the same size it was in 1970, despite the population growing by 80 percent. Processing technology dates back to the 1960s, and there are fewer auditors than at any time since World War II. President Biden has said he wants more funding for the IRS.
The Build Back Better bill that has stalled in the Senate would give IRS agents more power and more agents. It would also retroactively remove protections that were enacted for taxpayers in 1998 as part of the Internal Revenue Code.
Officials are urging taxpayers to get their returns in as early as possible. The tax filing season will run through April 18, 2022.
As the Lord Leads, Pray with Us…
- For Commissioner Rettig as the IRS continues to emerge from the pandemic backlog.
- For IRS personnel as they field questions and provide answers to taxpayers and tax preparers this year.
- For agents, auditors, and others who are part of the Internal Revenue Service working to catch-up on lost time.
Sources: Internal Revenue Service, CBS, Forbes
