Few Payers Penalized After IRS Destruction of Tax Documents (1)

The IRS made the right call in destroying 30 million unprocessed 2019 paper tax documents as it faced backlogs and staffing shortages due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a government watchdog report found.

The agency’s decision to destroy the information returns was reasonable, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found in a report released Monday. The IRS didn’t have enough staff to process the paper returns in time without delaying other priorities, and processing paper-filed returns wasn’t conducive to the telework environment required by the pandemic, TIGTA said.

Few payers were targeted for penalties or compliance treatment because ...