IRS just announced that the filing season start will be delayed eight days, from January 22nd to January 30th, because of tax law changes made in the very late year “fiscal cliff” legislation. The details as far as we know them are in this IRS document. Please note that while IRS states 120 million households will be able to file on January 30th, that still leaves a non-trivial portion of the population that will not be able to file returns until late-February/March. The release provides a few examples of forms/schedules that will not be processible until later in the filing season. That list should grow and should be available fairly soon (on IRS’ website and probably through IRS press releases as well), though we have not been provided a date certain for that information. Also, please keep in mind the following:
- You may not file returns electronically prior to January 30th with the expectation IRS will hold the returns and process them on the 30th.
- Taxpayers should understand that there is no advantage to filing on paper prior to January 30th as IRS will not process paper returns until after January 30th.
- If preparers submit returns with the affected forms or schedules, IRS will reject those returns; the Service will not hold those returns until it is able to process the affected forms and schedules.
- Many of the individual tax return forms and schedules are still in draft form.
I will continue to share updates as they become available.