Budget Blamed for IRS Delays on Tax Returns

The head of an Internal Revenue Service employees union blamed Reagan Administration budget cuts today for “the most disastrous income tax processing season in history” as millions of Americans rushed their returns to the post office ahead of the midnight deadline.

Delays in processing returns, fouled computers and overworked employees resulted from “an Administration bent on cutting the deficit with no regard for the consequences,” Robert Tobias, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, told a news conference.

Because of those cuts, audits, collections of delinquent accounts and assistance given to taxpayers have dropped considerably, he said.

“The country could lose billions of dollars in the next five years if present conditions are allowed to continue,” Tobias added.

An Administration spokesman replied that the tax-collection budget has increased in recent years, although documents show it would decline next year under President Reagan’s budget.

But Tobias, whose union represents most of the nearly 88,000 people on the IRS payroll, said the Administration has been penny-wise and pound-foolish in reducing the budget of an agency responsible for collecting 90% of the money required to run the government.

While the size of the IRS staff has declined since 1980, he said, the number of returns and information documents filed has doubled, to 1.23 billion.