The IRS paid out $283 billion as part of a pandemic-era tax credit program that became a magnet for fraud and faced long processing delays, according to a Tuesday report from the Government Accountability Office.
The payout of employee retention tax credits, intended to help businesses stay open during the pandemic, is more than triple the cost estimate of the program when Congress extended it in 2021. The refunds were also largely processed after the effects of the pandemic had largely subsided, according to the GAO report.
The employee retention credit became a massive headache for the IRS, which ...