Page 4 - aruba-today-20220622

A4 U.S. NEWS
Wednesday 22 June 2022
IRS erases last season’s backlog, but still faces 2022 crush

By FATIMA HUSSEIN this year, and electronic
Associated Press returns without errors have
WASHINGTON (AP) — The been processed within 8 to
Internal Revenue Service 21 days.
said Tuesday that it will “Despite this progress,
have erased its backlog of there are real challenges
last season’s tax returns by ahead,” the letter said.
the end of this week. “Because the IRS entered
And with 143 million returns this filing season with a sig-
from this year’s tax season nificant backlog, millions
processed so far, agen- of paper returns received
cy officials say there’s a in 2022 have not yet been
greater likelihood of being processed.”
caught up on processing The agency has been work-
all returns by the end of this ing to catch up to the ever-
year. mounting pile of work. The
The agency has faced a agency entered this year’s
well-publicized backlog of tax filing season with 8 mil-
tens of millions of tax returns lion unprocessed returns
and clogged customer ser- from 2021, and by the end
vice phone systems, which A portion of the 1040 U.S. Individual Income Tax Return form is shown July 24, 2018, in New York. of this week will have pol-
leaders have attributed to Associated Press ished off the last of those
decades of underfunding related programs — includ- reporters on condition of lus payments, according to that didn’t contain taxpay-
and antiquated internal ing stimulus checks and anonymity, said agency the latest IRS data. er errors, it says.
computer systems. advanced Child Tax Cred- employees have worked In that same time frame, Last week, the agency un-
“To date, more than twice it payments — imposed 500,000 overtime hours to 59.5 million people called veiled voice bots to help
as many returns await pro- a new workload on the bring down the backlog. or visited an IRS office. eligible taxpayers easily
cessing compared to a agency over the past two Agency officials have In a joint letter addressed verify their identity to set up
typical year at this point years. been asking Congress for to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., or modify a payment plan
in the calendar year, al- That’s on top of an IRS work- increased funding for the who heads the Senate Fi- while avoiding long wait
though the IRS has worked force that is the same size it agency. nance Committee, Trea- times.
through almost a million was in 1970, though the U.S. During the 2020 budget sury Deputy Secretary Wal- And in March, the agency
more returns to date than it population has grown ex- year, the IRS processed ly Adeyemo and IRS Com- announced plans to hire
had at this time last year,” ponentially and the U.S. tax more than 240 million tax missioner Chuck Rettig said 10,000 new workers. Thus
the agency said in state- code has become increas- returns and issued roughly Tuesday that the agency far 1,500 new workers have
ment Tuesday. ingly complicated. $736 billion in refunds, in- has provided over $298 bil- been hired, according to
Administering pandemic- A Treasury official, briefing cluding $268 billion in stimu- lion in refunds to Americans Treasury.q

Biden picks first woman, person of

color as science adviser

that eventually led to the elor’s degree in electrical and technology issues.
type of RNA vaccine used engineering. Sudip Parikh, chief execu-
to develop shots for CO- “She clearly is very smart, tive officer of the Ameri-
VID-19. In the 1990s, starting articulate, a visionary who can Association for the
at the age of 34, she was makes things happen,” Advancement of Science,
the first woman and young- said Trump science adviser the largest general science
est person to run the Na- Kelvin Droegenmeier, who society, highlighted Prab-
tional Institute of Standards said he didn’t know her per- hakar’s work at DARPA
and Technology. sonally but heard a talk of as something that “led to
Arati Prabhakar, left, the director of Defense Advanced Research Prabhakar would take hers at the National Acad- pioneering work on RNA
Projects Agency speaks after introducing then-Defense over after Biden’s initial sci- emy of Sciences “and was technology underlying CO-
Secretary Ash Carter to speak Sept. 9, 2015, at the opening of the ence adviser, Eric Lander, quite frankly blown away.” VID-19 vaccines.”
DARPA conference at the America’s Center in St. Louis. President resigned when a White Droegenmeier said Prab- Prabhakar immigrated to
Joe Biden has chosen Arati Prabhakar to be his science adviser. House investigation found hakar’s “first and most im- Chicago and then Texas
Associated Press
he bullied staff members portant role is to restore with her family from New
By SETH BORENSTEIN and physicist Arati Prabha- amid complaints about trust and integrity at OSTP, Delhi, India, when she was
AP Science Writer kar, who during the Obama how he treated co-workers. which I have no doubt she 3. After getting her PhD,
WASHINGTON (AP) — Presi- administration directed It was the first such resigna- can do.” In nominating Prabhakar worked for DAR-
dent Joe Biden nominated the James Bond-like De- tion of the Biden adminis- her, Biden called Prabha- PA, later becoming the first
the former head of two fense Advanced Research tration. Lander had previ- kar “a brilliant and highly person to run its microelec-
federal science and en- Projects Agency (DARPA) ously been criticized for respected engineer and tronics office. She then ran
gineering agencies to be which came up with the In- downplaying the contribu- applied physicist” who will NIST, which deals in engi-
his science adviser, who if ternet and stealth aircraft, tions of women in science. help use science and tech- neering standards. In be-
confirmed by the Senate, to the science adviser job, He would be replaced by nology to “solve our tough- tween government gigs,
will be the first woman, per- which also includes running Prabhakar, who was also est challenges and make she worked in Silicon Valley
son of color and immigrant the White House Office of the first woman to earn a the impossible possible.” as an executive and ven-
to hold that Cabinet-level Science and Technology doctorate in applied phys- The job includes dealing ture capitalist and in 2019
position. Policy. Prabhakar helped ics from Caltech, after get- with climate change, pub- she founded the research
Biden nominated engineer kick-start work in DARPA ting a master’s and bach- lic health, defense, energy non-profit Actuate.q