Inspector general: IRS tax backlog will continue into 2023

The Internal Revenue Service will fail to clear its backlog of tax returns prior to the beginning of the next season, a report from the Treasury said this week.

A report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration released this week found that “the remaining inventory and increased production levels indicates that the IRS will not meet all of its goals by the end of Calendar Year 2022 and will continue to have a backlog into the 2023 Filing Season.”

The backlog has plagued the revenue service for the past year due to staffing and logistical struggles, manny of them stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. The inspector general’s report said the IRS took “several steps” to clear the backup over the year, including extra staffing assignments and remote details.

The inspector general said those changes “recently resulted in an increase in productivity levels (i.e., the number of returns processed),” but it was not enough to meet the backlog goal before 2023. 

“TIGTA will continue to assess the IRS’s efforts to address the backlog of tax returns and other tax account work and issue additional reports in Calendar Year 2023,” the report said.