In order to prevent experiencing substantial delays, Americans are being urged to complete their 2021 tax returns as soon as possible. There is a significant backlog of processing tax returns from prior tax seasons when the Internal Revenue Service began, and the agency is urging filers to do their part to assist.
Backlog of unprocessed tax returns from 2021
Those who received an Economic Impact Payment or a child tax credit payment in 2021 will be receiving letters from the Internal Revenue Service, which is attempting to avoid excessively long processing delays at the start of this year’s filing season.
According to Federal News Network, in an interview on Monday, Commissioner Chuck Rettig told the reporters that most taxpayers who file online and request a direct deposit will receive their refunds within 21 days if their return is error-free.
The IRS began this year’s filing season with a large backlog of processing tax returns from last year’s filing season, as well as an overwhelming volume of phone calls. The IRS had approximately 6 million unprocessed individual tax returns and 5 million unprocessed taxpayer correspondence as of late December.
In light of the pandemic’s impact on call centers, Rettig stated that the IRS currently receives millions of calls than it can handle with its present level of manpower.
Backlog causes major issues for the IRS
According to AS News, the cost of the delays is massive. Not only does it affect the IRS but it also affects the federal government as well as individual filers who are forced to wait for their tax returns to be processed.
It also stated that business owners have been eligible to request additional tax relief through the CARES Act, passed into law back in 2020, which has been known as Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) credit refunds.
It appears that in September 2020 the IRS started to fall behind its own 90-day statutory requirement for application due to the delays to the tax return process, and continued to fall behind throughout 2021.
The IRS has very seriously suffered as a consequence of this failure as it was forced to pay out more than $60.00 million in interest in addition to the tax refunds.
Read More:
Social Security Benefits: Estimated Benefit Amount Before Retirement
College Tuition Insurance for Students Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic