Three days after the 2022 tax season started, an overwhelmed IRS suspends some taxpayer notices

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Personal Finance

Perspective

Three days after the 2022 tax season started, an overwhelmed IRS suspends some taxpayer notices

The agency is trying to cut down on correspondence with taxpayers, to avoid adding to a backlog of returns

By Michelle Singletary
Columnist
Yesterday at 7:00 a.m. EST

IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig and Treasury Department officials warned that the 2022 tax season would bring “enormous challenges.” That prophecy is already coming true.

The tax season opened Monday. Just three days later, the IRS announced it was suspending the mailing of certain automated notices because of a backlog in processing returns. The move would avert additional correspondence with taxpayers that would only add to the paper logjam and possibly prevent even more stress for filers.

[IRS delays triggered some premature collection notices]

As of Dec. 31, the IRS had 6 million unprocessed individual returns, including returns for the 2020 tax year.

The agency didn’t provide a detailed list of which notices it would be suspending, only referencing one type of letter, sent to taxpayers when the IRS has credited payments but has no record of the tax return being filed.

{snip}

By Michelle Singletary
If you have a personal finance question for Michelle, please call 1-855-ASK-POST (1-855-275-7678). Her award-winning column The Color of Money is syndicated by The Washington Post News Service and Syndicate and carried in dozens of newspapers. Twitter https://twitter.com/SingletaryM

[progree]

1. Taxpayers alarmed by IRS notice asking them to resend their 2020 returns. Is it a scam?

Taxpayers alarmed by IRS notice asking them to resend their 2020 returns. Is it a scam?, USA Today, 1/28/22

Their checks to the U.S. Treasury were cashed nearly a year ago. But taxpayers say they're now receiving letters from the Internal Revenue Service asking them to immediately file their 2020 federal income tax returns.

Yes, copies of their 2020 returns. Yes, the same paper returns they filed last spring. ((And yes, the checks they sent with those returns have long ago been cashed by the IRS -Progree))

More: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/taxpayers-alarmed-by-irs-notice-asking-them-to-resend-their-2020-returns-is-it-a-scam/ar-AATfYlO?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

Very long-winded. But no, it's not a scam. The IRS processes checks right away. They process returns as they have time and available people to process them. Meanwhile, the computer with its fantastic algorithm-filled brain spews out notices without anyone looking or caring if an unprocessed return had been received or not. The long-winded article tries to explain that.

[Farmer-Rick]

2. Just wait until they got to start auditing all those extra incomes of $600 or more

The threshold use to be $20,000. Now you get to pay more taxes on anything over $600......big difference. And that's because someone has got to pay for the tax giveaways to the filthy rich and it's you.

"The Covid-19 relief bill that was signed into law March 11, 2021, changed the threshold for reporting. As of Jan. 1, 2022, third-party payment networks must report business transactions totaling more than $600 to the IRS on Form 1099-K."

Not to mention a lot of other thresholds have been moved in order to get more taxes from the poor and middle class. All so the filthy rich don't have to pay.

[progree]

3. The IRS falsely claimed back in Nov 2020 for 9 months that I owed $2,900 in taxes for income

I allegedly didn't report.

On November 12 2020, I got a CP2000 notice from the IRS claiming that I didn't report $10,000 in Beneficiary IRA RMD distributions for 2018 taxes, thus under-reporting my taxable income by $10,000. So I owe $2,900 in taxes due to that and some secondary effects that I won't bother to go into and including $190 in penalty interest.

I promptly sent in all the details I could showing that indeed I had reported it. But about every 3 months they sent me a notice, e.g. "Before we resolve this matter, we need to process all of your information. We'll send you our complete response within 90 days"

Finally I got a letter 8/26/21 - "we're pleased to tell you that the information you provided resolved the tax issue in question and that our inquiry is now closed".

9 months is a long time to have a $2,900 tax bill plus ever-growing penalty hanging over one's head.

If this gets any worse, it's not going to help us in the midterms. Yes, its the Republicans who keep defunding the IRS more and more, but that's not who the voters are going to blame for this and the many many other issues the Repukes have caused.

Details: https://www.democraticunderground.com/11212509