ADVERTISEMENT THE BIG DEAL — IRS ended filing season with 35M unprocessed tax returns: The IRS ended this year’s filing season with more than 35 million individual and business tax returns that have not yet been processed, according to an independent watchdog report released Wednesday. The report, conducted by the National Taxpayer Advocate's office at the IRS, found that while most taxpayers were able to successfully file their returns and receive refunds, a record number of Americans did not. The number of unprocessed tax returns is more than four times greater than the number recorded at the end of the 2019 pre-pandemic filing season.