IRS Collecting Money but Not Sending Tax Refunds During Shutdown

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The IRS is still collecting taxes during the government shutdown, but it isn’t sending refunds — and it also has stopped complying with a subpoena to turn over documents to members of Congress who are investigating the agency’s targeting of tea party groups.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee have stopped getting documents from the Internal Revenue Service.

“The IRS has indicated to the committee that their furlough decisions will affect the agency’s responsiveness to committee requests, including the outstanding subpoena,” said Ali Ahmad, a spokesman for the oversight committee.

The government shutdown, which began Tuesday morning, has kept home an estimated 800,000 federal employees, including more than 85,000 who work for the IRS, according to the agency’s contingency plan. That leaves slightly more than 9 percent of the IRS staff on the job.

That is too few to process refunds but does not let taxpayers out of their obligations.