Under pressure from Congress, IRS moves to address delays caused by backlog

Patsy Etheridge just wants to know what happened to the $5,400 the IRS owes her.

Etheridge, a retiree from Cary, said she filed early last year, anticipating that COVID might cause delays. When she filed electronically last February, she received confirmation that her return had been accepted. But the refund check never showed up.

“Taxpayers that are owed money from the government deserve to get it back,” Etheridge told WRAL News. “That’s two months of existence for me.”

When she called recently, a message told her that if she was calling about a refund, no one was available to speak with her.

“This past two weeks, they’re saying you need to get your 2021 taxes filed early,” Etheridge said. “And I thought, ‘Why’? If they can’t process the 2020s, how are they going to process the 2021s?”

North Carolina’s 13 members of the U.S. House are among more than 170 congressmembers to sign on to a letter calling for action at the IRS, which is saddled with a colossal backlog that’s affecting taxpayers across the country.

According to Politico, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig sent an internal email to employees Thursday, saying some 1200 workers with account management experience would be reassigned temporarily to work on the millions of paper filings and forms that have been piling up since the pandemic first began in 2020.

The IRS did not immediately confirm or deny that report to WRAL News.

According to past testimony from Rettig, the problem was caused by a combination of factors. When the pandemic started, many IRS workers started to telework, and mail began to back up. Years of budget cuts have left the service drastically understaffed, and labor shortages have made it difficult to fill the remaining positions.

Additionally, many of the 2020 and 2021 pandemic relief programs have been administered by the IRS, from stimulus payments to business relief and child tax credit payments. Those relief programs have also complicated tax rules for filers, causing more than usual to file amended returns.

The Congressional letter says the backlog, as of December 2021, included 6 million individual returns, 2.3 million amended individual returns, and 2.5 million quarterly business tax filings.

The backlog has delayed some 2021 refunds, and others have been informed that they owe the agency money when they’ve already paid their tax bills. Some are even being threatened with collections or liens for debts they no longer owe.

The congressional letter, dated January 26th, calls on the IRS to pause its automatic collections until the summer while it catches up with filings, amendments and appeals waiting to be processed.

North Carolina second district Congresswoman Deb Ross (D-NC) said her office has fielded at least 300 complaints.

“There is a mismatch, because what they do is, if they get a check from you - so you actually paid your taxes - and then there's a form, well, they cash that check right away, but it may take longer to process the form,” Ross told WRAL News. “When the IRS doesn't think you filed things, you may have an assessment, then you have to clear that up. And it just compounds itself.”

Ross stressed that the reasons for the backlog are “no excuse for poor customer service,” but added that budget cuts have only exacerbated the problem. She said House Democrats are working on a budget proposal that would restore some of that funding. She said reports that IRS staff are being reassigned in the meantime are “great news.”

“The key is that these complaints are taken seriously, that we do as much as we can, given both the COVID and the funding situations,” Ross said, “and then, that we improve the underlying problem, which is not having enough bodies to do this work, and making sure that we take the IRS seriously in terms of funding and customer service.”

Back in Cary, Etheridge was less impressed by the staffing reallocation.

“They should have done that months ago.” she said.