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An inspector general report has called on the IRS to stop its plan to close its tax processing center in Austin, Texas, in light of the backlog of tax returns and the agency’s difficulties in hiring employees where the work would be shifted.
The closure had been announced in 2016 as part of a consolidation of centers in reaction to decreasing numbers of individual and business tax returns being filed on paper. But the report said that after carrying out the first stage of that consolidation, by closing a center in Fresno, Calif., the receiving sites already “had and continue to have millions of returns not processed and other account work remaining unworked.”
It said that function already has about 2,600 positions unfilled and that one of the receiving facilities, in Kansas City, was able to meet only about two-thirds of hiring goal. Problems include better pay in the private sector for similar work for some jobs; undesirability of the work and work schedules; applicants falling out of the hiring chain because they fail background checks; and candidates “who do not show up for work after they have been hired.”
Initiatives to address those issues “have not been successful” and the problems further “have been exacerbated” by the pandemic, the report said. The result is “millions of tax returns not being timely processed, refunds not being timely issued, and taxpayers not timely receiving assistance with their tax account issues,” it said.
In response, IRS management noted that it has announced a “strategic pause” regarding the Austin center. However, the IG noted that management has not committed to stopping the closure, and several times in the report stressed its recommendation that management do so, saying “the drawbacks of this closure are substantial.”
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