Tax Administration:
Interest on Tax Refunds Paid by IRS in 1988
GGD-89-42: Published: Mar 7, 1989. Publicly Released: Mar 7, 1989.
Additional Materials:
- Full Report:
Contact:
GAO provided information on how the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) computation of interest on taxpayers' refunds was often used as an indicator of its timeliness in processing refunds.
GAO found that: (1) the Internal Revenue Code required that IRS pay interest on any taxpayer refund it did not process within 45 days of the deadline or the date IRS received the return, whichever was later; (2) IRS paid about $12.6 million in interest as of October 1988, an increase of 53 percent over 1987; (3) about $1.4 million in interest was due to increased interest rates; (4) there was an increase in the number of nonrefund returns that IRS later found to contain errors that resulted in refunds; (5) IRS generally processed refund returns first and did not begin processing remittance returns until after the 45-day interest-free period expired; (6) IRS processed 2 million more remittance returns and issued about 280,000 more taxpayer error notices in 1988 than in 1987, which caused IRS interest payments to increase by about $2.8 million; and (7) IRS planned to monitor interest payments during the 1989 tax filing season and expected fewer errors as taxpayers became more familiar with tax law changes.
Jan 14, 2021
Tax Administration:
Better Coordination Could Improve IRS's Use of Third-Party Information Reporting to Help Reduce the Tax GapGAO-21-102: Published: Dec 15, 2020. Publicly Released: Jan 14, 2021.
Nov 18, 2020
-
IRS Reorganization:
Planning Addressed Key Reform Practices, but Goals and Measures for the Plan Have Not Been FinalizedGAO-21-18: Published: Oct 19, 2020. Publicly Released: Nov 18, 2020.
Nov 9, 2020
-
Opportunity Zones:
Improved Oversight Needed to Evaluate Tax Expenditure PerformanceGAO-21-30: Published: Oct 8, 2020. Publicly Released: Nov 9, 2020.
Oct 19, 2020
-
Tax Administration:
Opportunities Exist to Improve Oversight of Hospitals' Tax-Exempt StatusGAO-20-679: Published: Sep 17, 2020. Publicly Released: Oct 19, 2020.
Sep 23, 2020
-
Taxpayer Service:
IRS Could Improve the Taxpayer Experience by Using Better Service Performance MeasuresGAO-20-656: Published: Sep 23, 2020. Publicly Released: Sep 23, 2020.
Aug 31, 2020
-
Abusive Tax Schemes:
Offshore Insurance Products and Associated Compliance RisksGAO-20-589: Published: Jul 30, 2020. Publicly Released: Aug 31, 2020.
Jun 29, 2020
-
Taxpayer Compliance:
More Income Reporting Needed for Taxpayers Working through Online PlatformsGAO-20-366: Published: May 28, 2020. Publicly Released: Jun 29, 2020.
Jun 16, 2020
-
Tax Exempt Organizations:
IRS Increasingly Uses Data in Examination Selection, but Could Further Improve Selection ProcessesGAO-20-454: Published: Jun 16, 2020. Publicly Released: Jun 16, 2020.
May 1, 2020
-
Management Report:
Improvements Are Needed to Enhance the Internal Revenue Service's Internal Control over Financial ReportingGAO-20-480R: Published: May 1, 2020. Publicly Released: May 1, 2020.
Apr 30, 2020
-
Priority Open Recommendations:
Internal Revenue ServiceGAO-20-548PR: Published: Apr 23, 2020. Publicly Released: Apr 30, 2020.
Looking for more? Browse all our products here
Explore our Key Issues on Tax Policy and Administration
Explore our other Key Issues here
