WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service will begin the 2023 tax season bogged down in 10 million unprocessed tax returns from prior years and struggling to answer taxpayer phone calls, putting the embattled tax agency in a fraught position as Republicans try to gut its funding.The tax collector’s struggles were outlined on Wednesday in the National Taxpayer Advocate’s annual report to Congress, which detailed how years of cuts to the I.R.S.’s budget has crippled its capacity to enforce the tax code and serve taxpayers.The watchdog report offered optimism that the $80 billion in additional funding that was allocated from the so-called Inflation Reduction Act last year meant that improvements lay ahead.“We have begun to see light …
