Thousands of IRS employees were laid off last week, leaving many taxpayers wondering if those layoffs will impact them.
"We thought that maybe it would, but when we filed, it ended up coming right away to us so we didn't have to wait," said Paso Robles resident Stacey Damigos about her tax refund.
CPA Jessica Coblentz-Biehle at Coblentz-Biehle and Kramer said she doesn't think taxpayers will be very impacted.
"It's not necessarily a negative thing. It's maybe not great for the IRS, but for the individual taxpayers, I don't think they're going to be very affected by this at all," Coblentz-Biehle said. "The people that they are letting go are not handling the incoming tax returns. They're more on the compliance side. They're newly-hired auditors that are more probationary. We don't anticipate that the recent layoffs are going to have a real slowdown on the filing side of things."
She said you're more likely to see a delay in your return if you file late or by mail.
"Only paper file if you absolutely have to," Coblentz-Biehle said. "If your returns are getting rejected, if there's any kind of delay with these new layoffs, it's going to be on the paper file side of things. Just avoid any correspondence as much as you can by doing everything accurately and electronically. That's the best advice I can give."
While you have until April 15 to file, Coblentz-Biele recommends doing so online and soon.
