By Corky Siemaszko—
NBC News
It's time to file taxes and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is trying to reduce the panic due to the pandemic and possible delays in returns.
The federal agency is trying to address a backlog of 6 million unprocessed individual returns dating back to 2019, and last week announced it would stop sending automatic warnings to filers that their taxes are behind.
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"In many situations, the tax return may be part of our paper tax inventory and simply has not been processed," the IRS said in a statement.
“Stopping these letters — which could have been sent to thousands of taxpayers — will help avoid confusion,” he added.
It will also prevent heartbreak, added Charlotte Crane, a law professor at Northwestern University.
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“Normally the IRS has computers set up to send notices to taxpayers warning them when a tax return is overdue,” he said in an email, “but right now there is a large backlog of taxpayer returns that have been filed but not yet filed. have been prosecuted."
Many of these taxpayers, Crane said, “are actually in good standing with the IRS because they've received credit for paying the taxes shown due on those returns—whether through withholding, estimated payments or by filing, since those deposits are made before the returns are processed—even though your returns may not have been fully processed.”
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Thus, instead of sending "an alarming automated notice to a taxpayer who has filed a return that has not yet been processed," he said, the agency is choosing not to do so "even if the IRS computers think the return is still missing." .
"It's a prudent move by the IRS
," said Brian Marks, who directs the entrepreneurship and innovation program at the University of New Haven.
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"With this huge backlog of unprocessed tax forms as a result of the pandemic, this is a wise approach," he said.
“It helps minimize confusion and will help the IRS get on with its primary job, which is processing tax forms,” he noted.
Hampered by the majority Republican refusal under Trump to increase its budgets to hire more workers and modernize its computer system, along with limitations related to the pandemic, the IRS has struggled for several years to process tax returns on time. .
Most years, the IRS begins the filing season with about a million returns still to process.
This year, it's six times that amount, according to the agency.
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“Our employees have worked long and hard during the pandemic to help taxpayers and successfully modify our systems, despite lacking the funding we need to properly serve the American people,” said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig.
This year, the agency has stopped sending what are known as CP80 notices to taxpayers “who have made a payment and appear not to have filed their return,” spokesman Eric L. Smith said.
“Due to delays in processing 2019 and 2020 tax returns,
the issuance of CP80 and CP080
(Unfiled Tax Return — Credit to Account) notices has been suspended,” the IRS said.
“If you get a notice for your 2019 return and you filed more than six months ago, refile.
If you receive a notice for your 2020 return, DO NOT file again
,” the agency warned.
Many IRS in-person centers that process paper forms have been forced to close due to COVID-19.
And the coronavirus, together with budget cuts, caused a 25% reduction in the workforce.
Meanwhile, the IRS's workload increased dramatically as the federal government launched programs designed to help the country through the pandemic, such as expanding child tax credits and stimulus payments.
"By definition, no matter how much more efficient you are, you can't lose 25% of the workforce and assume you can do the same volume of work," John Koskinen, who served as IRS commissioner under former presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
"It's a problem across the board: information technology, revenue agents, people answering phones," he added.
The tax filing deadline for income earned in 2021 is April 18.
There are no plans to extend that deadline this year, the agency has said.
