The IRS says this year, ' Taxpayers Get Our Message'

 The IRS says this year, ' Taxpayers Get Our Message.'

According to the IRS, an estimated 160 million tax returns are expected this year, and so far, tax season is going smoothly.

The tax agency has processed 6.6% more returns than a year ago, even though it has received 2.1% lower returns from taxpayers.

According to Ken Corbin, Commissioner of the Division of Wages and Investments and Chief Taxpayer Experience Officer at the IRS, the tax agency is on track to improve taxpayer experience for the 2023 tax year.

"So far, we've received more than 91 million individual returns this year and have processed 89 million returns," Corbin told Yahoo Finance Live. "The great thing about it is that we see that more taxpayers are getting our letter. We have seen about a 96% rate of electronic filing, which is fantastic."

Processed returns

The IRS is still grappling with an unprecedented backlog of millions of unprocessed returns — some going back to last year.

As of March 31, the IRS had 2.7 million unprocessed individual tax returns dating back to 2021 and 2.3 million unprocessed individual tax returns from 2022. Under normal circumstances, the IRS has a backlog of 1 million unprocessed returns entering the season. Deposit.

The IRS has urged taxpayers to file their returns electronically this year to reduce the chances of further delays. The agency also doubled down on hiring and reassigning workers to bypass the pile of unprocessed paper returns.

The IRS has also redesigned its website, IRS.gov, to make it more user-friendly so that taxpayers can navigate and find information quickly. The tax agency has also added a new individual account that allows taxpayers to keep track of their data and tax status.

"Last year, the pandemic allowed us to sit back and think about taxpayer travels as they interact with the IRS," Corbyn said. "It's an opportunity to be innovative and bring coherence around how we manage taxes... We've introduced new technology like voice and chatbots on our phones and IRS.gov. And we've implemented Taxpayer Experience Days, where taxpayers can come to our offices and talk to us [on the weekend] ".

If anyone can not submit your tax return after this season and want to avoid any significant delay in getting your refund, you must file it electronically.

National taxpayer attorney Erin Collins recently said that filing a paper return may delay your tax processing for ten months or more. This can be a real setback if you're waiting for a refund or the remainder - if not the total amount - of the child tax credit.

"Number one, file electronically and use direct deposit — there are many options out there, including our free IRS file program," Corbin said.

The IRS said that people who received a CTC advance payment in the past year or held unemployment were encouraged to use their personal IRS.gov account to check how much assistance they received before filing, so their returns won't be saved for manual review.