The IRS has awarded its tax return backlog "surge team" with $1,000 bonuses for their dedication.
A new report indicates that the team, who recently learned they will continue their temporary assignment for the foreseeable future, have cut the pandemic backlog in half since the start of 2022.
IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig sent an email to these workers last month, announcing their $1,000 Special Act Award bonus and thanking them for their service.
He told the employees:
“Recovering from this backlog and improving the taxpayer experience are critical to the IRS mission. Thank you to all the surge participants, and thanks to all of you for your continued commitment and dedication throughout the pandemic."
To that end, Biden administration Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also recently praised the IRS for the agency's efforts to modernize, thereby improving the overall taxpayer experience for all Americans.
In mid-August, following the passage of the Democrat-backed Inflation Reduction Act, Yellen gave the agency a six-month timeframe to present a "modernization plan."
As part of the IRA, the IRS is set to receive $80 billion in additional funding and resources to hire 87,000 new employees.
In a recent visit to the IRS's New Carrollton Center in Prince George's County, Maryland, she said:
"Just last month, here in New Carrollton, I heard that a team of your software developers completed the conversion of more than 200,000 lines of Assembly Language Code to Java. This is widely recognized as one of the most complex modernization efforts in all of government. And your team completed it more than a month ahead of schedule. I know many of you have worked weekends and traveled across the country to provide tax filing assistance to thousands of taxpayers. These are people who would otherwise not have had any help."
Yellen went on to note that she greatly "appreciates the work" that IRS agents and IT professionals do on a daily basis.
She also outlined some of the specific initiatives that will be funded by the agency's $80 billion boon, including the hiring of new phone representatives -- and a commitment to boost the level of phone service to 85% from 10-15% -- automated scanning of paper returns into digital copies, and development of a government-backed free filing system that will rival TurboTax and other software programs.
What do you think about IRS employees getting a bonus?
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