A view of an IRS 1040 Tax Form on a Laptop computer screen being prepared for an electronic filing. Robert Barnes, Getty Images The IRS is taking steps to relieve the backlog of tax returns.The agency plans to hire 10,000 new full-time workers to play a direct role in that mission, according to Politico.There are millions of unprocessed tax returns and other mail from individual and business taxpayers, according to the union that represents most of the IRS workforce.The hiring process is scheduled to run through Dec.