In The Black: The IRS: It could always be worse

Who’s left to answer the phones?

Well, tax season is in full swing, and yours truly is solidly in the long days and reckless consumption of easter candy portion of her year. But while I may be excited for May, I’m not riding the struggle bus like the IRS. We’ve talked about the dramatic understaffing at the IRS before - they’ve lost about more than 20% of their staff, most of them in departments that process tax returns and answer taxpayer questions and the phones.

​The IRS’s Inspector General issued a warning to the agency to address the issue before the backlog of tax returns gets worse. For context, it now stands at 2 million returns, up 33% from last year at this time. The agency took the unprecedented step of moving employees from other (non-tax departments) to answer the phones and, most troubling, PROCESS TAX RETURNS!!

What does this mean for you and me, dear reader? Expect the wait times in calling the IRS to be even longer, and when you do get through, you may reach a befuddled HR employee who might not be able to help you (Try to be kind?). Also, you can expect a lot of tax notices and error letters this summer. Can’t wait.

IRS gets in trouble over sharing info with ICE

Earlier this month, a second federal judge ordered the IRS to stop sharing residential addresses with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Trump administration had been using that taxpayer information to track down undocumented immigrants. In fairness to the IRS, multiple senior officials quit in protest of this policy.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani said the information sharing potentially violated taxpayer privacy rights. She blocked the agencies from sharing the data until the court can review the case further and barred ICE from using information already provided by the IRS. So, some good news.
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Hang in there,

Liz & The Team​