Here’s the four priority areas the $80B is going to address:
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Clear the backlog - Rettig in March pledged to clear the pileup by the end of 2022, and as of Aug. 5, there were 9.7 million unprocessed individual 2021 tax returns, according to the IRS.
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Improve customer service - While the agency only answered 11% of phone calls during fiscal 2021, the Taxpayer Advocate reported, the IRS has recently leveraged technology to make improvements.
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Overhaul the agency’s technology systems - “The two IRS systems containing the official records of individual and business taxpayer accounts are the oldest major technology systems in the federal government,” National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins wrote in her January report to Congress.
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Hire IRS employees to replace retiring workers - During fiscal 2021, the IRS workforce consisted of 78,661 full-time employees, a decrease of 12.9% since 2012, according to the agency.