MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The shutdown is rippling through the government, including the IRS. The agency starts processing tax returns on Monday. Besides the shutdown, the agency is dealing with the biggest changes to tax laws in three decades.
Last week, the IRS ordered nearly half its staff - that's about 30,000 furloughed workers - back to work without pay. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports on how that is affecting the agency.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Priscilla Clowers returned to the office last week to resume training on the new tax code so she can answer IRS customer service calls. But she's also fretting about how to pay for her wedding planned for March 30.
PRISCILLA CLOWERS: I'm sitting here like, oh, my God, this can't be happening. I still got to get my dress. Oh, my God, I've got to pay the vendors, the wedding planner, the caterer. And I got to buy my cake.
NOGUCHI: Clowers says if she's still not getting paid February 1, the reception is off.
CLOWERS: I haven't even called anybody because it's like somewhere deep down inside of me, I got faith in God that something is going to work out.
NOGUCHI: Clowers, a Navy veteran, says the mounting anxiety makes focusing hard.
CLOWERS: We're doing a refresher of everything that we previously learned before we left. I'm trying to get back into the swing of things, but my mind is just on everything that's going on at home.
NOGUCHI: Even in a normal year, taxes can be complicated and stressful for taxpayers and IRS workers alike. But this year, the agency is trying to implement big changes in tax law while many employees are absent or preoccupied with their personal financial struggles. Tony Reardon is national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, representing 70,000 IRS workers. The union says some workers have been unable to report to work.
TONY REARDON: I mean, how are they going to handle commuting costs, child care costs, I mean, even when you think about, OK, so how are they going to afford lunch?
NOGUCHI: So what does that mean for the 150 million Americans filing individual tax returns and those expecting refunds? Christopher Rizek is a tax attorney and adjunct professor at Georgetown.
CHRISTOPHER RIZEK: I don't know how that's going to turn out. I think everybody is hopeful, but not a lot of people are optimistic.
NOGUCHI: The shutdown, he says, exacerbates an existing problem.
RIZEK: There's been a big brain drain at the IRS, particularly at the more senior, experienced levels, you know, because why would someone continue to work for the IRS when they can go work for an accounting firm, do the same work for more money and less stress?
NOGUCHI: Automated systems might offset some of the burden. Kathy Pickering is executive director of The Tax Institute at H&R Block. She notes the vast majority of taxpayers - 97 percent - use software to prepare taxes, and most of them file electronically as well.
KATHY PICKERING: If you prepare your return using software and you electronically file and you ask for a direct deposit, your return has a really good chance of flowing through without interruption.
NOGUCHI: That's not the case for forms filed the old-fashioned way.
PICKERING: Any paper filing is just necessarily going to take longer.
NOGUCHI: Also, Pickering says, many taxpayers will see changes to their anticipated refunds because of the new tax law. That will likely result in more calls to the already-jammed IRS hotlines. Some people say taxpayers should feel the pain. Penny Hays is a 35-year veteran IRS worker in Seattle. She says she feels financially pinched from the shutdown and argues taxpayers should, too, if nothing else, to demonstrate that IRS workers provide essential services. If they don't, she says...
PENNY HAYS: It makes the American people feel like there's nothing going on. It's no big deal. Everything's working for them.
NOGUCHI: Hays says the effects of the shutdown will linger by making it harder for the IRS to recruit.
HAYS: It's disheartening because you see these people walk out the door who have so much job knowledge. And I have a lot of job knowledge, but I have no one to give it to.
NOGUCHI: But at least one new IRS worker plans to stick it out. Priscilla Clowers, who's getting married in March, says she hopes she'll get paid in time to have a reception.
CLOWERS: But if not, like my fiance says, all he needs is the preacher and me (laughter).
NOGUCHI: Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.