Can you dodge a bullet twice? Forget the action movies—let’s ask the IRS.
Perhaps you remember: Tax filing season last year went basically fine. Repeating that in 2026, however, is where that second bullet comes in.
Despite IRS job cuts at the start of the year, there were enough critical filing season employees to get through the 2025 busy season, ultimately processing more tax returns than the year before, according to a recent report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
The IRS processed 142.2 million returns in 2025, compared with 139.9 million in 2024, while exceeding its 85% level-of-service goal for phone calls.
But things already don’t look the same for 2026, the IRS watchdog cautioned.
“Although the 2025 filing season was not impacted, the IRS is beginning to see the effects of the workforce reduction on post-filing season activities, and we are concerned how this will impact the 2026 filing season,” the report said, adding that “key IRS functions responsible for managing the filing season have lost 17% to 19% of their workforce.”
Meanwhile, an IRS initiative dubbed the Zero Paper initiative, launched in 2023 and meant to improve digital processing for paper-filed returns and mitigate impact from staffing cuts, “is already delayed,” the report noted. Best of luck with that second bullet.
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