'The IRS Is A Hot Mess': It Only Answers 3% Of Phone Calls, 35 Million Tax Returns Remain Unprocessed

Washington Post, The IRS Is a Hot Mess: Millions of Tax Returns Haven’t Been Processed, and Calls Are Going Unanswered, Including Mine:

I want to apologize to every person I’ve encouraged to be patient with the Internal Revenue Service as it stumbles through the aftereffects of the pandemic. Your righteous indignation is warranted.

The IRS is critically malfunctioning.

I didn’t fully grasp, until a recent report from the national taxpayer advocate, that the IRS has officially given up on answering every taxpayer telephone call for assistance — and that has to be fixed.

The agency is a hot mess. You are right to be mad as hell when you can’t reach somebody to help explain why your filing or refund hasn’t been processed. And, yes, I cussed, because the time to be polite and forgiving for the failures at the IRS is so over.

Right now, millions of taxpayers are waiting for their much-needed refunds and stimulus payments. Millions more are trying to settle issues with past tax returns and unable get a human being on the telephone, while interest costs potentially tick up each day things go unresolved.

• CBS News, Still Waiting For a Tax Refund? IRS Backlog Has Grown to 35 Million Returns
• The National Interest, No Tax Refund? It Might Be In the IRS's Pile of 35 Million Return Backlog
• New York Times, The I.R.S. Had a Backlog of 35 Million Returns By the End Of the Tax Season
• Washington Times, The IRS Answered Only 3% Calls on Hotline During Past Tax-Filing Season