The IRS' Daily Routine

photo via champagnedentalblog.com

What are some of the things you do on a daily basis?  Brush your teeth, check your email, read a favorite book?  Even though it may not be apparent to most of us, the IRS actually has a daily routine too: processing tax returns.

But this wasn’t always so.  Before 2005 the IRS operated on a weekly processing schedule.  In other words, what showed up in IRS computer systems could be out of synch with what was sitting on somebody’s desk for up to a week at a time.

TIGTA recently audited the IRS’ daily return processing performance with favorable results.  However, it is still a work in progress; there are certain tax returns with “qualifiers” (or codes) that prevent daily processing.  Some of the qualifiers include:

  •  identity theft
  • bankruptcy
  • pending litigation
  • Offer in Compromise pending
  • Currently Not Collectible status
  • underreporter issues
  • tax return adjustments

Coincidentally, the presence of some of these same disqualifying factors are also what tend to hold things up on the collections side of things when seeking tax relief.