Even with six fewer days so far, the number of individual income tax returns filed in 2018 had nearly met 2017 levels by the end of week 4. READ MORE →
The IRS had received 41.7 million individual income tax returns as of Feb. 16, the end of the third week of filing. That was down 1.8 percent from Feb. 17, 2017, but there have been six fewer filing days this year so we’re holding up apples to pencil sharpeners in comparison. READ MORE →
An angry and frustrated National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson has slammed Congress hard in the Taxpayer Advocate Service 2017 Annual Report to Congress. After a series of IRS budget cuts over the last several years, Olson says she sees the daily consequences of reduced funding and the choices made by the agency in the face of funding constraints.
“Funding cuts have rendered the IRS unable to provide acceptable levels of taxpayer service, unable to upgrade its technology … and unable to maintain compliance programs that both promote and protect taxpayer rights,” Olson says in her preface to the annual report.
“‘Shortcuts’ have become the norm, and ‘shortcuts’ are incompatible with high-quality tax administration,” says Olson, describing her agency as swamped with problems and inadequacies.
Data for the week ending April 21, the week in which the filing deadline fell, was just released and it paints the same picture we’ve seen since January: overall returns and e-filings down, with refunds the only scant positives. READ MORE →
According to data from the week ending April 14, the latest available, the only figures on the positive side remained total refunds and average refund per taxpayer. READ MORE →
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