Written Testimony of Charles P. Rettig, Commissioner Internal Revenue Service before the Senate Finance Committee on the IRS Budget June 8, 2021 Introduction Chairman Wyden, Ranking Member Crapo and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the IRS budget and provide you with an update on IRS operations. I am pleased to report the 2021 filing season, which was extended to May 17, went smoothly in terms of tax return processing and the operation of our information technology (IT) systems. Through May 28, the IRS received more than 149.6 million individual federal tax returns and issued more than 101.2 million refunds totaling more than $281.4 billion. In 2021, we have had had more than 1.4 billion visits to IRS.gov and have received more than 150 million taxpayer phone calls (more than 300 percent of normal; at one point we were receiving calls at the rate of 1,500 per second) and have answered more than 37 million calls through our automated systems and live phone assistors. Although the filing deadline has passed, I would note that the work of the filing season goes on well beyond the deadline – IRS employees continue to process tax returns, including