IRS Delays Will Be “Extraordinarily High” Again, Warns The Agency’s Taxpayer Advocate

The Internal Revenue Service will have “extraordinarily high” delays again in processing returns, the agency’s National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins told Congress today.

She cautioned there’s no magic bullet to get the IRS out of a “deep hole” in her appearance before the House Ways and Means Committee Oversight Subcommittee.

The IRS is starting the 2022 filing season severely behind the eight-ball, Collins asserted, because it has millions of returns left over from last year it hasn’t processed, including 6 million unprocessed original individual returns (Form 1040 series) and 2.3 million unprocessed amended individual returns (Forms 1040-X) with more than 2 million employer’s quarterly tax returns (Forms 941 and 941-X).

Last year, said the expert, was the worst year for taxpayers trying to reach the IRS by phone. In 2021, only 11 percent of taxpayers were able to reach a customer service representative and for those who did, the average wait time was 23 minutes.