ON EXTENSION: FILE YOUR TAXES NOW!

During the recent Commissioner’s address at the IRS Tax Forum, Chuck Rettig requested that those on extension file well before the October 17th deadline. He stated that approximately 18 million extensions were filed for individual tax returns and if all those extended waited until the last minute to file their returns it would add to the burden on the IRS staff to timely process all returns.

The goal of the Service is to be healthy by the end of 2022, with the current backlog greatly reduced, so that going into the 2023 tax filing season will proceed smoothly.

During his address he shared the following data:

Since the pandemic began, the IRS has successfully delivered more than $1.5 trillion to people across the nation through tax refunds and by implementing various COVID-related relief measures. This included:

• Three rounds of Economic Impact Payments totaling more than $800 billion, all in record time.
• More than 200 million advance payments of the Child Tax Credit totaling $93 billion that were made to eligible families between July and December of last year.

He continued by addressing the backlog of tax returns and correspondence:

We’re continuing efforts to reduce paper correspondence inventory and process paper tax returns from 2021, as well as navigate unprecedented level of phone demand during the pandemic period.

Actions we’ve taken to address the inventory include:

• Surge teams
• Mandatory overtime
• Increasing access to online self-service tools
• Innovating to expedite case closures
• Suspending various notices.

The Commissioner began and ended with a heartfelt “thank you” to the tax professional community for the services they provide during the filing season and throughout the year.
His statutory term of five (5) years will end on November 12, 2022 and this was his last address during the IRS Tax Forums.