IRS Forces Weekend Overtime to Tackle Tax Return Backlog: What You Should Know

The IRS is asking some workers to work extra hours on weekends to help clear a big pile of tax returns that have errors. Employees at the Kansas City processing center need to work eight hours on May 10 and May 17, according to a recent memo.

Latifah Hisham, an IRS manager, said that all eligible employees must work a total of 16 extra hours on the weekends. These workers help fix mistakes on tax returns. Sometimes, they have to send letters to taxpayers before they can finish processing returns. Hisham warned in the memo that if they don’t make a good dent in fixing the mistakes, more weekend work might be needed in the future.

Former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said that forcing workers to do overtime can make them even more tired. The IRS rarely makes employees work extra hours, which shows that the backlog of tax returns is serious.

During the pandemic, many workers had to do overtime, especially when offices closed and there were tons of letters to deal with. Koskinen noted this to Federal News Network.

Kelly Reyes from the Professional Managers Association suggested that this might be due to a shortage of workers. About 22,000 IRS employees signed up for a “deferred resignation” program, which allows them to take paid leave until the end of the fiscal year. However, some workers were not allowed to leave early because they are needed during tax season.

The Kansas City office is one of only three IRS places still handling paper tax returns, along with offices in Austin and Ogden. They also have a lot of electronic returns to process, which makes the workload heavier for employees there.

During the pandemic, the IRS had workers do overtime and created “surge teams” to clear backlogs. Former Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in 2022 that over 6,000 employees were forced to work extra hours, which was more than they should have. The IRS briefly stopped mandatory overtime to help reduce employee stress, but they soon started it again and even offered $1,000 bonuses for extra work.

With staff shortages and ongoing backlogs, the IRS is returning to overtime work, raising worries about worker burnout.