Waves of Last-Minute Tax Filings Flood Into Geared-Up Fresno Hub

An estimated 1 million federal income tax returns rolled off truck rigs and into a vast concrete building here Friday as the Internal Revenue Service’s Regional Service Center was plunged into an annual frenzy of work, rendered more intense this year by the new tax law.

“There are more last-minute filings of federal tax returns this year than ever before, but we’re prepared. . .,” insisted Theron C. Polivka, 54, director of the facility.

He predicted that all refunds will be paid by June 24.

The returns arrive in trucks jammed with metal carts. The carts, each filled with thousands of last-minute tax returns, roll onto loading docks and then into the one-story center, which is the size of 16 football fields.

By late Thursday, returns had arrived from about 7.5 million of the 10.5 million taxpayers in Central and Southern California and Hawaii who file through the Fresno office. Most of the remaining 3 million returns will arrive in the next few days.

Largely because of the new tax law, there are more late returns than ever, and the Fresno center has employed a larger work force--6,469 men and women, 769 more than last year. More than 4,400 of the employees are temporary workers. Some work for only a few weeks while others stay as long as nine months.

“We have hired more supervisors who are supervising less people than last year in an effort to expedite the processing and to get our quality up,” Polivka said.

“To handle the mountains of returns, our employees will be working 10-hour-a-day shifts for the next three weeks. We have 27 different shifts with people coming in at all hours of the day and night to process the returns.”

He noted that 3.9 million taxpayers filing early through the Fresno office had already been paid $3.5 billion in refunds. Polivka said about 80% of those filing returns get refunds.

Last year on the two days following April 15 at the Fresno center, $1 billion each day was received in payments from taxpayers owing money who filed at the last minute. Today and Sunday (there are no weekends off for the IRS center) are expected to be billion-dollar days again this year.

As the returns pour in, they are emptied from the carts onto long computerized conveyor belts. The envelopes are opened by machine and are then segregated into various slots and processed through the maze that is the IRS center. Clerks at desks check to make certain all the proper papers are included; some returns are selected at random for audit; others deemed suspect are pulled out for the same reason.

Payment checks are banked quickly--the day of arrival if possible--at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and its Los Angeles branch.

IRS officials acknowledge that some taxpayers obviously are struggling with tax reform.

“Anytime there is a change in tax laws, we see an increase in errors on tax returns, and we are seeing more errors this year than last year--about 3% to 4% more,” reported Marty Gomez, public affairs officer for the IRS at Fresno.

“We are seeing errors in changes in exemptions and in standard deductions and the usual number of math errors that you see every year. We are trying to correct the errors on the spot as we encounter them and if necessary we contact the taxpayer.”

Meanwhile, in Sacramento, Jim Reber, a spokesman for the Franchise Tax Board, said the volume of state income tax returns is running “almost the same as last year, so far.”

Even so, Reber said, “We are swamped. We have received about 8 million (state) tax returns so far this year and expect another 4 million by midnight tonight. Approximately 1 million other people are requesting extensions.”

The board also anticipated answering more than 30,000 telephone inquiries up until 10 p.m. Friday night in comparison to an average of 20,000 inquiries fielded daily since Jan. 1, Reber said.

Times staff writer Jerry Gillam in Sacramento contributed to this story.