As tax season begins, the IRS is already getting behind. Here’s what we know

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Tax season officially got underway on Monday, but issues with the IRS are already piling up. 

A report by the National Taxpayer Advocate – an independent watchdog group within the agency – finds the backlog of unprocessed tax returns quadrupled in the past four years, from 500,000 in 2019 to 1.9 million as of October. 

Fox News says the report also highlights “extraordinary delays” in helping identity theft victims, taking an “unconscionable” 19 months to resolve self-reported cases. Meanwhile, the IRS’ phone service is also a mess: while the agency claims employees answer 85% of calls, the report finds they answer only 35%. 

129 million tax returns expected to be filed by the April 15 deadline. There’s growing concern of whether or not the IRS will be able to process all those returns in a timely manner.

This is the second tax season since President Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which funnels tens of billions in taxpayers dollars to the IRS.