Your tax refund may actually land on time this year. Thank the IRS.
CBSN
As Americans turn the page on another tax season, the Internal Revenue Service may finally be turning the corner after a mountainous backlog of tax returns, delayed refunds and poor customer service gave people even more reason to loathe the federal agency they love to hate.
Over the past year, the IRS has rebuilt its ranks, answered more than 80% of calls and worked its heap of unprocessed returns down from over 12 million to roughly 2 million, the U.S. Treasury Deported reported this week. Getting help is easier, too. Taxpayers now face an average wait time of four minutes to get an IRS employee on the phone, down from a patience-sapping 28 minutes last year.
"Tax filing season this year has gone much more smoothly than 2020 and 2021," Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow in the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told CBS MoneyWatch. "They did get extra money and were able to hire more people to answer the phone. They dug through a pile of paper returns, which was an unimaginable mess. So even with a small amount of money, things are better."
The House Republican bill to enact President Trump's domestic policy agenda contains a provision that has prompted opposition from the Mexican government — a tax on cash payments sent by non-U.S. citizens to family members in their home countries.
An American man who had been on the run for over two decades was arrested in Toronto earlier this year, police said.
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates — President Trump said Friday that he's moving to set up direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin as soon as he can, after Putin opted to skip peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey.
Charter Communications has agreed to merge with Cox Communications in a $34.5 billion deal that will combine two of the top three cable companies in the U.S.
President Trump on Friday said his administration will send letters that inform other nations of the tariff rates the U.S. will impose on imports, adding that "it's not possible to meet the number of people that want to see us."
Apple has blocked access to the online game Fortnite on iPhone devices in the United States and the European Union, according to the video game maker.
Horse racing excitement is set to continue on Saturday night when the second part of the Triple Crown launches at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. The Preakness Stakes, also known as the annual run for the Black-Eyed Susans, comes just two weeks after the season kicked off with the Kentucky Derby.
The judge overseeing Bryan Kohberger's upcoming quadruple-murder trial says he wants to identify anyone who may have violated a gag order by leaking information from the investigation to news organizations or anyone else not directly involved with the case.
Washington — House Republicans have yet to resolve several major disputes that threaten to derail President Trump's domestic policy bill as more conservative members and blue-state Republicans dig in on their demands.
The Preakness Stakes has a field of nine horses set to race in Baltimore on Saturday for the 2025 running of the middle jewel of horse racing's Triple Crown.
An undocumented immigrant who resides in Florida is facing a more than $1.82 million fine for failing to leave the country after receiving a removal order 20 years ago, CBS News has learned.
Former FBI Director James Comey has provoked an outcry from the Trump administration after he briefly posted a photo to Instagram that federal officials alleged was a call for violence against President Trump — a claim Comey pushed back on.
Increasingly, when lawyers take divisive political issues to court, they seek out federal jurisdictions where they hope to find judges sympathetic to their worldview. This phenomenon, known as venue shopping, has been employed by both sides of the political aisle, according to a new CBS News analysis of federal court data for cases seeking nationwide impact.