Amendment & Tax Return Processing Delays Create Difficulty for All

It’s no secret that the IRS has struggled to process taxpayer returns in a timely fashion since the pandemic started. Adding fuel to the fire, the pandemic created millions of taxpayers who desperately need their refunds in order to pay for living expenses. According to the Taxpayer Advocate Service, the IRS had a backlog of 2.7 million unprocessed amended returns as of October 30th, 2021. This number includes e-filed and paper-filed amendments. The ability to e-file the amended returns has been available for a little over a year, and it was hoped that it would help expedite the processing of these tax returns. This has simply not been the case. Most amendments require additional review of changes beyond simply making it through the accuracy of the e-file database. Currently, the operational timeline for processing amended tax returns is more than 20 weeks. 

Due to the operational delays, the Taxpayer Advocate Service has stopped accepting new cases where the sole issue involved is processing an individual or business amended tax return. 

A taxpayer can track the status of their amended return using the “Where’s My Amended Return” tool on the IRS website.  

For additional information regarding time lines and operational priorities of the IRS during these unprecedented pandemic times, check out this page on the IRS website:  IRS Operations During COVID-19: Mission-critical functions continue