A sign outside the US Treasury Department’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) facility on May 4, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
PA
The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will begin officially accepting and processing tax returns starting January 23, the agency reported Thursday.
The news came after the National Taxpayer Protection Service reported Wednesday that the IRS’s internal watchdog is seeing “a light at the end of the tunnel” in terms of IRS customer service issues thanks to the hiring of thousands of new employees and tens of billions of dollars in new funding for the agency.
Agency directors said taxpayers can expect an easier filing process this year.
“We’ve trained thousands of new employees to answer phones and help people. While there’s still a lot to do after a tough few years, we hope people see improvements this tax season,” said Doug O’Donnell, acting commissioner of the IRS.
The IRS recently hired 5,000 new customer service representatives who are trained in taxpayer rights issues and account management technical issues, and is gradually moving on from the hundreds of thousands of raw returns from the previous season.
The Republican majority in the House of Representatives has vowed to rescind the nearly $71 billion Congress has given to the IRS, though the bill they passed Monday is unlikely to advance in the Democratic-majority Senate.
April 18 is the deadline for most taxpayers to file their 2022 tax returns, request extensions and pay debts. That’s because the normal filing date of April 15 falls on a weekend and the District of Columbia’s Memorial Day holiday is April 17.
Source: El Nuevo Herald
