{"id":4043,"date":"2021-09-14T12:52:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-14T12:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/?p=4043"},"modified":"2021-09-20T12:57:37","modified_gmt":"2021-09-20T12:57:37","slug":"the-irs-needs-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/planning-for-tax-minimization\/the-irs-needs-help\/","title":{"rendered":"The IRS Needs Help"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The IRS is a malfunctioning mess.\u00a0 A recent\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/JRC22_FullReport.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">report<\/a>\u00a0from the National Taxpayer Advocate, states that the IRS has failed to answer taxpayers\u2019 requests for assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have been a tax lawyer for decades and have seen many different IRS problems over the years but this is the worst. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am angry not for just my clients but for the millions of people who cannot afford a tax lawyer to get help. Tax lawyers often have access to tax practitioner hotlines to get quicker resolution of issues. The rest of the population has no such access. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Refunds have not been processed. The IRS\u2019 computers continue to very slowly process backlogged returns and issue erroneous payment notices. As we speak,\u00a0millions of taxpayers are waiting to settle issues with past tax returns and unable to get anyone on the telephone, while interest costs increase each day matters are unresolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A historically high number of returns needed manual processing this year, Erin Collins, the national taxpayer advocate, said in the report. At the end of this year\u2019s filing season, the IRS had a backlog of more than 35 million individual and business returns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>IRS employees have worked hard during unprecedented\ncircumstances brought on by the pandemic. But, covid cannot be blamed for everything\nat the IRS, which was having issues with customer service long before the\npandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the report, during the 2021 filing season, the IRS\nreceived 167 million telephone calls: over four times the number during the\n2019 filing season. At one point, the IRS received calls at the rate of about\n1,500 per second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIRS employees could not keep pace with this massive volume of\ncalls, resulting in the poorest service ever,\u201d she said. \u201cOur ability to answer\nphone calls reflects the amount of staffing available,\u201d the IRS said in its\ndefense. \u201cPending budget proposals would help the agency\u2019s ability to assist\nmore taxpayers, including on the phones.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The IRS is right. It is simply not given enough money to properly\nhelp taxpayers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is an aloof callous choice of our Congress. We can and\nshould do better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We must fully fund the IRS to get the service we all deserve. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The IRS is a malfunctioning mess.\u00a0 A recent\u00a0report\u00a0from the National Taxpayer Advocate, states that the IRS has failed to answer taxpayers\u2019 requests for assistance. I have been a tax lawyer for decades and have seen many different IRS problems over the years but this is the worst. I am angry not for just my clients [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"1","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-planning-for-tax-minimization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4047,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043\/revisions\/4047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}