Recent Government Shutdown – Effects on IRS Operations

Posted on December 06, 2013

The recent government shutdown was the second longest government shutdown since 1980 and, according to the Office of Management and Budget, the costliest on record in terms of employee furlough days.

The government shutdown also delayed IRS collections of approximately $1 billion dollars per week in enforcement revenue and the IRS will owe interest to taxpayers on $3.7 billion in refunds that were not timely issued.

Further, the tax return filing season for federal Form 1040 tax returns for 2013 will likely be delayed for up to two weeks.

Did you also know that the federal employees that were furloughed were paid for their time off? I don’t understand why the government would shut down, send its workers home for three weeks, instruct them to perform no work and then pay them for their time off when the government reopens. It would have made more sense to keep the government open.