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Economy

The IRS braces for the unthinkable: A normal tax season

The tax agency has spent nearly $1 billion in new funding to improve service, and tax pros say the investment is already paying off

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March 3, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EST
The IRS has spent $847 million from the Inflation Reduction Act to prepare for this tax season, the Treasury Department said. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
6 min

The Internal Revenue Service’s massive — and controversial — funding boost has begun to reach the front lines of tax season, and it’s vaulted the agency from more than a decade of disarray, tax experts say, to a once-unimaginable position: a functioning tax service.

The IRS is answering 90 percent of its phone calls, has squashed its backlog of overdue returns, introduced new online taxpayer tools to keep pace with private software companies and processed 99.7 percent of returns filed this tax season, according to agency reports.