IRS headquarters in Washington. (Photo: Bloomberg)
Months ago, the IRS extended the 2019 tax filing date from April 15 to July 15 because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but now many taxpayers who mailed their returns or tax payments on time are receiving billing notices from the tax agency for nonpayment.
"I'm getting notes from all over the country that 'this has happened to me,'" said Claudia Hill, president of Tax Mam, which provides tax preparation and planning and tax problem assistance for individuals, businesses, estates and trusts.
She explained in an interview with ThinkAdvisor and in an article published on Forbes.com that the months-long closures of IRS service centers around the country due to the pandemic have created a massive backlog of tax payments for the agency to process (The service centers didn't begin to reopen until sometime in June.)
In the meantime, the fully automated IRS billing system sent out notices of nonpayment to those taxpayers who mailed their checks to the service centers.
"About 5%-10% of our clients are getting notices about not filing their returns and no valid payment on record from the automated IRS system," said Miklos Ringbauer, the owner of MiklosCPA in Los Angeles.
Harold Justice, a client of Jeffrey Levine, a certified financial planner, CPA and director of advanced planning at Buckingham Wealth Partners, said he was "shook up" by the notice he received from the IRS for nonpayment of taxes on a trust, received weeks after he had sent the check.
