TSCPA Joins AICPA in Seeking Support from U.S. Treasury for Tax Filing Relief
TSCPA, in partnership with the AICPA and other state societies, with support from U.S. Representative Sanchez and Representative LaHood and others, is calling on the Treasury and IRS to consider solutions that will help filers bypass the extreme IRS backlog due to the pandemic and make it easier to file timely returns.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has strained every federal agency, the impact on the IRS has been particularly severe. As of Dec. 23, 2021, the IRS continued to have a backlog of 6 million Forms 1040 (Individual Income Tax Returns) and 2.3 million amended individual tax returns. In addition, the IRS has 2 million Forms 941 (Employer Quarterly Tax Returns) that must be processed before the nearly 500,000 amended Forms 941 can be processed. These challenges, in addition to the antiquated technology and constrained budget the IRS is operating on, makes the current situation alarming.
TSCPA recently requested that our delegates in the U.S. House of Representatives sign on to a letter urging the IRS to consider the following measures to help provide immediate relief to taxpayers and help reduce the backlog during this tax filing season:
- Halting automated collections from now until at least 90 days after April 18, 2022;
- Delaying the collection process for filers until any active and pending penalty abatement requests have been processed;
- Streamlining the reasonable cause penalty abatement process for taxpayers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic without the need for written correspondence;
- Providing targeted tax penalty relief for taxpayers who paid at least 70 percent of the tax due for the 2020 and 2021 tax year; and
- Expediting processing of amended returns and providing Taxpayer Advocate Service and congressional caseworkers with timely responses.
While no single action will alleviate all the issues currently facing the IRS, these steps would help minimize impact of the backlog for the upcoming tax filing season. TSCPA will continue share updates on this story at www.tscpa.com/news.