Letter to Hon. Charles P. Rettig, Commissioner of the IRS - Warner Continues Push to Address IRS Issues Facing Taxpayers

Letter

Dear Commissioner Rettig:

Thank you for your ongoing work to eliminate the unprecedented backlog at the Internal
Revenue Service (IRS). With the 2022 filing season underway, we continue to be concerned
about the backlog's impact on taxpayers and congressional offices' ability to assist constituents
with IRS casework. As the IRS works to eliminate the current backlog of returns and
correspondence, we request you to pursue additional actions to maximize the IRS' current
workforce to address the backlog in order to reduce disruptions this filing season.

Our teams of congressional caseworkers work to provide timely assistance to constituents
experiencing challenges with the IRS. We continue to hear from constituents who are still
waiting for their 2020 tax returns, have received confusing notices about overdue payments they
already paid, and cannot reach anyone at the IRS for assistance. Many of these problems stem
from the millions of unprocessed correspondence items from 2021.

In 2020 and 2021, the IRS was integral to providing financial relief to Americans during the
pandemic, such as distributing economic impact payments and monthly Child Tax Credit
payments as well as processing small businesses' filings. While we appreciate the magnitude of
these endeavors and strongly believe Congress must support the IRS with the resources
necessary to fulfill its responsibilities, we also recognize that there are many taxpayers still in
dire need and who have legitimate concerns about the current filing season.

We understand the long-term solution to ensure the IRS can manage its workload and provide
timely and high-quality service to taxpayers is additional resources to hire and train employees
across several departments and modernize technologies. However, those investments will take
time, and taxpayers require more immediate relief, especially with the 2022 filing season already
underway. We were encouraged to see your announcements of forming surge teams to address
the backlog and pursuing overtime policies. In order to maximize the impact of the current IRS
workforce, we respectfully request information on the following question:

What are the current overtime policies for different positions working on the backlog?
Please provide information on overtime policies for employees typically assigned to
processing correspondence, those temporarily working on surge teams, and any other
relevant positions.

Additionally, we urge you to consider the following policies:

Pursue maximum overtime options for staff who are working on the backlog for those
who do not already have maximum overtime flexibilities.
Allow additional employees to volunteer to join surge teams, such as employees with
prior account management experience or those who could be trained in a relatively short
period of time.
Extend overtime options for additional surge team employees.

Thank you for your attention to this critical issue, and for the IRS' work serving taxpayers. Your
swift action on this issue will help alleviate the concerns of taxpayers across our country.

Sincerely,