K1052
Elite Member
- Aug 21, 2003
- 45,884
- 32,667
- 136
Damage to the IRS alone seems pretty severe and does not bode well for filing season.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...tchdog-tells-congress/?utm_term=.979ca430ac4d
But challenges to the IRS, as well as other agencies, are expected to persist after the longest shutdown in government history.
For instance, the IRS has a backlog of 5 million unanswered pieces of mail from taxpayers, up from 2.5 million on Jan. 16, IRS officials have told House aides. With in-person taxpayer assistance centers closed during the shutdown, the IRS was receiving more than 700,000 pieces of mail every day, up from 200,000 pieces of mail daily as of Jan. 16.
The government shutdown also delayed training for IRS employees, who must be taught how to implement changes to the tax code passed by Republicans in 2017. About 2,000 recently hired IRS employees also need to be trained before they can start answering taxpayer questions over the phone.
Concerns are also mounting over the service’s information technology, as a hardware glitch on Tax Day last year crashed the IRS’s online filing systems. The IRS is also losing 25 IT staffers every week since the shutdown began, with many finding other jobs, one House aide said, citing a briefing by IRS officials earlier in the week.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...tchdog-tells-congress/?utm_term=.979ca430ac4d