IRS on furlough

Any thoughts on how the last week of the season will be impacted now that TE/GE has officially furloughed what appears to the the majority of their staff? 

Just curious what musing people have now that we are crossing the bridge. 

Fire.gov is still accepting Form 8955-SSA submissions and sending confirmation receipt emails.

We are using it as a "hey let's not wait any longer to get that 5500 that's been sitting there for weeks to be e-filed, just in case the system crashes and no one is there to fix it".

On 10/10/2025 at 9:28 AM, JustSayin said:

Fire.gov is still accepting Form 8955-SSA submissions and sending confirmation receipt emails.

I was going to do a new question post on this, until I saw yours. We've had mixed results - a couple of 8955-SSA forms filed earlier last week show a status of received, but they haven't been processed, whereas some others filed AFTER that have been processed. Anyone else finding such inconsistencies?

Another musing.

My client received an audit letter and we are representing them.

We have some of the material, asked a two week extension which was granted pre-furlough for and granted. He asked for the information to be received by 10/22 and his reply emailmentioned something about sanctions if material not supplied.

Since the furlough, I wonder if I can ask for another extension, I can't really call the gentleman and request another one week extension "because he's on furlough"

Would like some suggested wordings here.

You might consider a strategy in the other direction: Respond promptly, and let delays in the IRS use up some of the remaining statute-of-limitations period.

Later, when the IRS requests the taxpayer’s consent to extend the statute-of-limitations period, you’ll have a bargaining chip. You might say your client will consent only after there is a written agreement for the IRS to abandon and close all but a specified set of remaining issues, narrowing any further examination to only those.

https://www.bls.gov/bls/092025-cpi-reschedule-notice.htm

BLS will issue CPI numbers for September on this Friday so SSA can meet statutory deadlines. 

Wonder if the IRS will issue next year's pension limits "soon after" or if the furlough will further delay that as well.

If IRS people obey the IRS's shutdown plan, I don't see how the IRS would publish or even release inflation adjustments any sooner than after the shutdown ends.

But if BLS releases Consumer Price Index measures Friday, many practitioners can do the arithmetic (or use someone else's) to set unofficial amounts.