Fewer paper tax returns arrived. The backlog nearly doubled.
Summary
The IRS's own watchdog reports that paper-filed individual tax returns dropped by nearly half between the 2025 and 2026 filing seasons -- yet the pile of paper returns still waiting to be processed at the end of February grew from 330,000 to 630,000. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration ties that specific backlog to computer programming needed to process paper returns that wasn't finished until mid-February 2026. Separately, it reports the function responsible for processing those returns, Submission Processing, filled only 42% of its approved hiring for the season.
A filing season the IRS was short-staffed to handle
The Submission Processing function -- the unit that physically processes tax returns, resolves errors, and now scans the incoming paper -- entered the 2026 filing season unable to fill⧉ 58% of its approved positions. As of February 27, 2026, it had onboarded just 800 of the 1,900 employees it was approved to hire. The Accounts Management function, which answers taxpayer calls and processes account adjustments, did somewhat better, onboarding 2,300 of 3,500 approved positions (66%) -- but it also had to divert some of those same staff toward working through a backlog of amended tax returns, splitting its capacity between phones and paperwork.
Fewer returns in, more piling up
The paper-return figures cut against the intuitive read. Total tax returns received fell only 2% year over year, but paper-filed returns specifically fell by nearly half -- taxpayers and preparers keep shifting toward e-filing, which now accounts for 99% of all returns. That should have made the paper workload easier to manage. Instead, the unprocessed paper inventory⧉ grew 90.9%. attributes that specific increase to computer programming, not staffing -- the system needed to process paper returns wasn't finished until mid-February 2026, so returns piled up in the meantime regardless of how many arrived.
View data as table
| Paper returns received, 2025 | 1,200,000 |
|---|---|
| Paper returns received, 2026 | 618,000 |
| Unprocessed paper backlog, 2025 | 330,000 |
| Unprocessed paper backlog, 2026 | 630,000 |
It's not just paper returns
Combined inventory across the 's 7 key tax return processing programs -- amended returns, correspondence, unpostables, rejects, error resolution, and paper returns -- rose from 1.9 million at the start of the filing season to 2.4 million⧉ by the end of February, with 5 of the 7 programs growing. The timeliness picture is mixed but tilts worse: amended-return inventory that the Accounts Management side handles fell in raw count (578,000 to 485,000) but its share stuck past deadline rose from 64% to 72% overaged; the Submission-Processing-side amended return stream saw its overaged share jump from 35% to 73%. Three programs -- correspondence, unpostables, and error resolution -- actually improved.
View data as table
| Submission Processing, approved | 1,900 |
|---|---|
| Submission Processing, onboarded | 800 |
| Accounts Management, approved | 3,500 |
| Accounts Management, onboarded | 2,300 |
The takeaway
- Volume went down. The backlog went up anyway. Paper returns received fell by half; the unprocessed paper pile grew by 91% -- attributes that specifically to a programming delay, not incoming demand.
- Submission Processing had the deeper hiring gap of the two functions. It filled only 42% of its approved positions for the season -- and it's the same function that handles the paper backlog, even though ties that backlog's growth to the programming delay rather than to this shortfall directly.
- made no recommendations, and the gave no formal response. This report was interim information only; management reviewed it but declined to respond formally, leaving the causes on the record without a committed fix.
This is an interim report: 's data runs through approximately February 28, 2026, roughly one month into a filing season the expected to run through mid-April and receive about 164 million returns total. plans a final report on the full season later in 2026. Not every metric moved the same direction -- average refunds rose $360 to $3,742, and correspondence, unpostables, and error-resolution inventories all improved year over year -- so this piece focuses on the programs and functions where the numbers moved against the , not a claim that every part of the filing season went worse.
Sources(1) ▾
- Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), Interim Results of the 2026 Filing Season (Report No. 2026-400-031) (2026-06-30) — 's interim audit of individual tax return processing during the 2026 filing season, issued June 30, 2026, covering data through approximately February 28, 2026. Prepared as information-only with no formal recommendations. Direct WebFetch of the PDF returned it as binary; fetched via curl with a browser user agent instead and converted with pdftotext -layout. Read in full, not a summary. tigta.gov · original document
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The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reports⧉ that the received far fewer paper tax returns during the 2026 filing season than the year before -- about 618,000 through February 28, 2026, down from roughly 1.2 million a year earlier. Despite that drop, the number of paper returns still sitting unprocessed at the end of February grew from 330,000 to 630,000. management told the cause: the computer programming needed to process paper returns wasn't finished until mid-February 2026.