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Taxpayer Advocate Says IRS, Already Bleeding, Hard-Hit by Shutdown

By BOB HENNELLY
Posted 2/15/19

As reports surfaced that the practical impact of President Trump’s  $1.5-trillion tax cut caused sticker shock for many taxpayers who face having to write a check to Uncle Sam rather than get their customary refund, a government report found the five-week shutdown had crippled the Internal Revenue Service's  ability to answer questions about how to navigate the new tax code.

In her annual review for Congress on the IRS's performance, Nina Olson, the Taxpayer Advocate, reported that even before the shutdown, the agency had more than 5 million pieces of mail waiting to be sorted along with 80,000 responses to audits that still needed to be addressed and 87,000 amended returns that still had not been processed.

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