The Internal Revenue Service announced this week that the 2024 tax season will officially commence on January 29. The agency anticipates over 128.7 million tax returns to be filed before the deadline on April 15.
The announcement comes in the wake of ongoing improvements to the organization’s technology and customer service processes. Funding for the overhaul comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law in August 2022.
“As our transformation efforts take hold, taxpayers will continue to see marked improvement in IRS operations in the upcoming filing season,” said the agency’s Commissioner Danny Werfel in a news release. “IRS employees are working hard to make sure that new funding is used to help taxpayers by making the process of preparing and filing taxes easier.”
Leadership representing the agency says taxpayers can expect the following this tax season:
- Additional walk-in center openings to facilitate the expected volume.
- Improvements to paperless processing, which will enhance IRS correspondence.
- Enhanced online accounts for individual taxpayers.
- The ability to file 2023 returns online directly through the organization’s new electronic direct file pilot program.
- Most refunds are expected to be issued in under 21 days.
In recent years, the IRS has been overwhelmed with paper tax return backlogs. In June 2022, the agency witnessed a logjam of over 21 million paper returns.
This year, a smoother filing process with fewer delays is anticipated amid the expanded funding. However, funding challenges could remerge as threats of cuts persist.
In 2023, debt ceiling and budget cut deals between Republicans and the White House resulted in the organization seeing $1.4 billion in funding pulled back from its initial $80 billion allocation. A separate agreement was also finalized that will see $20 billion cut from the agency over the following two years.
