Barry Moore joins legislation to address IRS backlog

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Paying taxes in 2021. Shutterstock/Thiam

Rep. Barry Moore joined his colleagues to introduce the IRS Priorities Act to demand the IRS address the staggering backlog of over 8 million unprocessed tax returns. The bill would also bar the IRS from hiring any new enforcement officers until the backlogs of the past two years are processed. 

According to a Washington Post report in February, nearly 24 million taxpayers are still waiting for the IRS to process their tax returns from last year — a number far larger than previously reported by the agency. In the past, the agency usually only carried 1 million or fewer returns into the next tax season.

The IRS’s productivity dropped during the pandemic as thousands of employees worked from home for months without access to returns, audits and other business.

Because of the excessive backlog, IRS’s Taxpayer Advocate Service will not accept cases solely involving amended tax returns, thereby leaving millions of Americans without help.

IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said the problem has been compounded by a lack of funding to hire new staff and the need to modernize iaging computer software systems, some of which date to the 1960s.

According to democrat Richard Neal, the GOP is to blame. “For decades, Republicans have starved the IRS of funding, and now American taxpayers are paying the price,” stated Neal, chairman the House Ways and Means Committee. “The backlog of tax returns is but one symptom of the fundamental issue that has been ailing the IRS for too long: inadequate resources.”

Moore was critical of President Joe Biden, arguing that instead of prioritizing this backlog and the taxpayer, Biden has made it clear that his priority is turning the IRS into a surveillance and enforcement watchdog.

“President Biden clearly does not have a plan to address the historic backlog at the IRS, and it’s time for Congress to step in and ensure hard-working Americans recover the money they already earned,” stated Moore. “We must ensure that the IRS actually does its job of assisting taxpayers with the convoluted tax code, before even considering hiring any more enforcement officers.”