The deadline for filing taxes for 2024 is Tuesday night. But you can file for an extension — and for some, the extension is automatic this year.

To hear more about extensions and how budget cuts could impact your return process, “Marketplace Morning Report” host David Brancaccio chatted with Nina Olson, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Taxpayer Rights. Olson also has long experience with the national Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent outfit within the IRS.

The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

David Brancaccio: On this matter of extensions, there's an automatic extension for people who've been through official disasters, of which there have been many. For instance, [for] the Southern California wildfires, people don't have to file, I think, until October.

Nina Olson: Well, this is something that Congress has created the authorization for the IRS when there's a presidentially-declared disaster to extend all sorts of filing dates. You know, the deadline for one disaster may be different for another, depending on when they concern. So, the best thing to do is to check with the IRS.

Brancaccio: Now, Nina, you follow the following very closely: There have been budget cuts and hiring freezes affecting the Internal Revenue Service. Do you think you'll run into the effects of that if you call in with a question these days?

Olson: There are many people who file extensions — about 20% of the taxpayers, at this point, file extensions until October 15. And others, their refunds are held up in processing because maybe there's been an identity theft that's occurred, so there are two returns in the system. And if those employees who are handling the phones, handling the correspondence when you send in something saying, "I don't owe this," if there's no one there to look at it, you know, you're going back to pandemic levels of taxpayer service — which was virtually nonexistent.

Brancaccio: Now you strike me as a person who probably did her 2024 tax return within five minutes of you getting your W2 form statement of your income. Is that what you did?

Olson: Not completely five minutes, but fairly shortly after. And actually it went through smoothly, and I got a refund. But for lots of people, the IRS has a lot of filters and models to identify questionable refunds, because it's always, in its opinion, better to stop the refund from going out than trying to claw back an incorrect refund.

Brancaccio: Yeah. I mean, I'm hearing from you a straightforward point, which is some people may be listening to news of cutbacks at the IRS saying, "Oh, less of a chance of getting audited." But the flip side is less of a chance of perhaps getting a refund that's due.

Olson: People are really harmed if they can't get their refunds. For many refunds — particularly low-income taxpayers — the refund's about 25% of their annual income. And I think you know, that's where the myth of, you know, fewer auditors, and I don't have to worry about it. That's ignoring the fact that so much of what the IRS does on the compliance side and the enforcement side is automated, and it's only after the automated action that you reach out and get a live human being looking at this.