IRS Aims to Clear Backlog in 2022 Amid Announcements of Hiring Spree, Reentry Plans
As the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) continues to work through existing backlogs, the filing deadline for taxpayers remains Monday, April 18, 2022.
Commissioner Chuck Rettig told the Senate Finance Committee Thursday the IRS aims to onboard approximately 2,200 employees in 30 to 45 days under an expedited hiring authority to address the tax return backlog. Nearly 90 percent of those who attended in-person job fairs for positions at the agency's processing centers in Austin, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri; and Odgen, Utah, received a job offer on the spot.
As of March, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) haves a total of 2.7 million individual returns to process from 2021 and 2.3 million from 2022. In response, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) granted the IRS use of an expedited hiring process, known as direct-hire authority. By the end of the calendar year, the agency hopes to reduce its stock of unprocessed paper tax returns.
According to Rettig, the agency expects to hire 5,000 employees through the expedited process this year, with an additional 5,000 next year. To place these numbers in perspective, the IRS had less than 79,000 full-time equivalent employees in fiscal year 2021—that’s close to the number of employees in 1974 when the U.S. had approximately 120 million less citizens. In addition, nearly a quarter of the workforce is eligible for retirement.
Simultaneously, the agency’s remaining remote workforce will return to the office in two phases, one on May 8 and another on June 25. According to stakeholders, the IRS re-entry program set up a gradual process for IRS employees to adjust to a new work environment.
IRS employees with work requiring in person attendance, such as those opening mail in IRS processing facilities, have been reporting to the office since Summer 2020. The remaining reentry plans are for IRS employees whose work allowed them to be remote while the federal government was in a maximum telework posture.
However, some lawmakers contend federal workers, including IRS employees, aren't returning to work soon enough. As previously reported by FEDmanager, the Return Employees to Understaffed Worksites to Reopen Now (RETURN) Act (S.3672) requires IRS teleworkers to return to their offices until the agency is able to resolve its backlog.
Chad Hooper, Executive Director of the Professional Managers Association (PMA), which represents IRS managers and non-bargaining unit employees, noted that IRS employees whose work is most tied to the backlog have been in the office for well over a year, and connects the backlog to more systemic issues at the IRS.
“Bringing them physically into an office for two days a pay period isn’t going to process the tax return any more quickly or any more slowly,” Hooper stated, “It’s a distraction — this is a very emotional kind of issue.”
