Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine are raising concerns about delays in the Internal Revenue Service processing employee retention credit applications. Warner and Kaine say the backlog of applications is causing confusion and financial uncertainty for many businesses, nonprofits and other taxpayers.
“While we applaud the work the IRS has done since June 20 to weed out ineligible claims and identify valid claims, we continue to hear from a growing number of Virginians who are frustrated by the lack of clarity about when their individual claims will be decided,” the senators wrote.
The ERC was created in response to COVID-19 to provide an incentive for employers to continue paying their employees and not put them out of work during the height of the pandemic. However, due to processing delays at the IRS, many taxpayers are still waiting for the tax credits they believe they are entitled to.
“As you know, businesses and other organizations need answers about their ERC claims to decide whether to make investments in operations, personnel, and capital projects,” Warner and Kaine wrote. “Unfortunately, many of our constituents tell us they cannot make informed decisions because they do not know when and if their claims will be processed. Many Virginia organizations with ERC claims have been waiting for a year or more without even receiving a response from the agency. Despite our best efforts to represent the interests of these constituents, even our office’s outreach has provided little to no clarity about when the claims will be processed. Simply put, this is unacceptable.”
The senators are calling on the IRS to take steps to address the problem and expedite the processing of ERC claims.
“We have made numerous requests on behalf of the citizens of Virginia and receive new requests on a regular basis,” Warner and Kaine wrote. “How does the agency plan to work with our offices to ensure that these requests are reviewed and processed in a timely manner?”
