In a recent development in Washington, — With an anticipated 128.7 million returns submitted by the April 15th tax deadline, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officially declared January 29 as the start date of the 2024 tax season on Monday.
Politicians' Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law in August 2022, provided tens of billions of dollars to the agency, which is currently undergoing a huge renovation in an effort to strengthen its technology and customer service operations. The announcement comes at the same time as this upgrade.
"Taxpayers will continue to see marked improvement in IRS operations in the upcoming filing season as our transformation efforts take hold," stated IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel in a news release. "Taxpayers will benefit from the new funding because it will make preparing and filing taxes easier," the IRS stated.
The head of the agency has announced a number of changes for this year's tax season, including additional walk-in facilities, improved paperless processing to streamline IRS communication, and improved access to individual online accounts.
Furthermore, a new electronic direct file pilot will allow qualified individuals to submit their tax returns to the IRS electronically for the year 2023. It is anticipated to be publicly accessible in mid-March, according to the IRS, and its rollout will be done in phases.
More often than not, the IRS anticipates issuing refunds in less than a week. Massive backlogs of paper tax returns plagued the IRS in prior years. More than 21 million paper tax returns were overdue in June 2022, and National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins said: "The math is daunting.
The IRS had hoped for a more efficient filing season with fewer backlogs and more money, but now it faces ongoing concerns of budget cuts.
The IRS had $1.4 billion of its original $80 billion allocation cut from the Inflation Reduction Act last year as part of a budget deal between Republicans and the White House. Separately, there was an agreement to take $20 billion from the IRS over the next two years and redirect it to other nondefense programs.