Government Shutdown Will Not Impact IRS Operations

With the growing possibility of the government closing, the IRS wants you to know that taxpayers are still expected to send in their tax returns by the April 18 filing deadline.


According to the Commisioner of Internal Revenue Doug Shulman, if the government closes, Internal Revenue Service operations will be affected, but the agency will be able to normally process and issue refunds for electronically filed returns. Processing of paper returns will be delayed, he said.


The Commissioner stressed the administration's goal is to avoid a shutdown. Asked how a shutdown might impact the work of the IRS chief counsel and tax regulations, Shulman gave a more general answer.

IRS has 100,000 employees; if the government closes, “not all of us will be coming to work,” he said, without implying whether that would affect the chief counsel's office. Shulman said he could not provide “nuances of who's going to be doing what.”

The IRS commissioner said his agency is a “huge operation” involved in the running of government. “Funding the government every two weeks is not a great way to operate,” the official said, noting that “not knowing what to expect” makes IRS's tasks difficult.