[FoxNews] An audit of the Internal Revenue Service found staffers destroyed 30 million taxpayer documents, as they faced a massive backlog. | Always keep a copy of everything you send them as well as post office receipts, just in case. |
| Clearly the IRS trusts that most taxpayers are pretty honest. |
"This audit was initiated because the IRS’s continued inability to process backlogs of paper-filed tax returns contributed to management’s decision to destroy an estimated 30 million paper-filed information return documents in March 2021," says the TIGTA report signed by Michael E. McKenney, the deputy inspector general for audit. "The IRS uses these documents to conduct post-processing compliance matches to identify taxpayers who do not accurately report their income."
The IRS issued a public statement last week regarding the inspector general report first released on May 4.
"There were no negative taxpayer consequences as a result of this action," the IRS statement says. "Taxpayers or payers have not been and will not be subject to penalties resulting from this action."
The destroyed tax documents included W-2 forms and 1099 forms, according to the inspector general. The IRS responded to the inspector general with inaccurate responses, according to the report.