 Internal Revenue Service IRS Tax News! IRS sets January 23rd as officials start a 2023 tax filing season, more help available for taxpayers this year. Ah, tax season. It's the most wonderful time of the year. The W-2 and 1099 forms ripen and are ready to be picked from the soils of your yearly labor and made into tax returns, kind of like picking apples and then making them into apple pie. Hey, wait a second here. This W-2 apple of mine has clearly had a giant worm in it all year, and the worm already ate half the apple, and then it made the other half all brown, mushy and gross, presumably from worm waste. Honestly, how am I supposed to enjoy making my tax return apple pie when my apple has been desecrated in this way? Like, I mean, it feels like Uncle Scrooge made a pool out of all of our money to swim in. Oh, there's only one thing better than owning a bottle of cold hard cash and that's swimming in it. And push it up and let it hit me on the head. And then didn't even have the courtesy to get out of the pool when he needed to use the restroom. And then after swimming in our money pool, Uncle Scrooge splashes some of the gross dirty pool money water back in our face, calling it a tip for our services. As if he's the one who earned the gross money pool water in the first place. I mean, can you believe, you know, I'm starting to think tax season's not actually the most wonderful time of year after all. I don't care what they say, whatever. I are 2023-05 January 12 2023 Washington. The internal revenue service today announced Monday, January 23 2023 as the beginning of the nation's 2023 tax season when the agency will begin accepting and processing 2022 tax year returns. More than 168 million individual tax returns are expected to be filed with the vast majority of those coming before the April 18 tax deadline. People have three extra days to file this year due to the calendar with the three previous tax seasons dramatically impacted by the pandemic. The IRS has taken additional steps for 2023 to improve service for taxpayers. As part of the August passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which seems like a quite deceptively named act because they kind of spent a whole lot of money, which seems like the opposite of inflation. But whatever, the IRS has hired more than 5,000 new telephone assistors and added more in-person staff to help support taxpayers. This filing season is the first to benefit the IRS and our nation's tax system from multi-year funding in the Inflation Reduction Act. Acting IRS Commissioner Doug O'Donnell, with these new additional resources, taxpayers and tax professionals will see improvements in many areas of the agency this year. So it's kind of interesting whenever you hear like a government entity or any entity say there will be improvements, good things will happen. You'd kind of like to be able to say, okay, what are those things that are going to happen specifically and how can we measure them? Can you set an actual target that we can look at numerically to see whether you have reached it or not? If not, it sounds to me like political talk, right? Good things will happen, and if they don't, they'll probably be a good reason why the good things didn't happen, right? So we've trained thousands of new employees to answer phones and help people. While much work remains after several difficult years, we expect people to experience improvements this tax season. That's just the start as we work to add new long-term transformation efforts that will make things even smoother in future years. We are very excited to begin to deliver what taxpayers want and our employees know we could do with this funding end quote. These steps took place as the IRS works for months to prepare for the 2023 tax season. The January 23 start date for individual tax return filers allows the IRS time to perform annual updates and readiness work that are critical to ensuring IRS systems run smoothly. This is the date IRS systems officially begin accepting tax returns. Many software providers and tax professionals are already accepting tax returns. They will transmit those returns to the IRS when the agency begins accepting tax returns on January 23. In other words, if you have the documentation, if you're able to file your tax return, you might be able to do so now, but it'll be basically on hold, the IRS not accepting it on their end until January 23. The IRS urges people to have all the information they need before they file a return. Filing a complete and accurate tax return can avoid extensive processing and refund delays, as well as avoid the possibility of needing to file an amended return, which is a nice thing to avoid. In addition, the IRS encourages people to carefully review their tax situation to make sure they don't overlook important tax credits they may be eligible for, like the earned income tax credit, the EITC. In other words, the IRS has set a special day on January 27 to encourage people to make sure they understand the important benefits of the EITC, a credit that can help low and moderate income workers and families. The IRS has a variety of free services available to help people. The IRS's Volunteer Income Tax Assistance and Tax Counseling for the Elderly program, there's a link to that, also offers a basic tax return preparation to qualified individuals. People can also get help from the trusted tax professional, there's a link to that here. Commercially available tax software, as well as IRS free file, which provides free electronic filing of tax returns. April 18 tax filing deadline in 2023. The filing deadline to submit 2022 tax returns or an extension to file and pay tax owed is Tuesday, April 18, 2023, for most taxpayers by law, Washington DC holidays impact tax deadlines for everyone in the same way as the federal holidays. So the due date is April 18 instead of April 15 because of the weekend and the District of Columbians Emancipation Day holiday, which falls on Monday, April 17. So that's a good thing for tax preparers to know. The question will probably be coming up by clients and it's good to just be able to say, yeah, that's the, it's the Washington DC District of Columbia's Emancipation Day holiday, which caused the extension from April 15 to April 17 or April 18. Isn't that interesting? Taxpayer requesting and extension will have until Monday, October 16, 2023. So if you go on extension, you're out till October 16. Tips to help people with the 2023 tax season. The IRS recommends several things for people to keep in mind for a smooth filing experience this year. Have the right information before filing. That's a good idea. The IRS encourages individuals to have all the information they need before filing a complete and accurate return. Organize and gather 2022 tax records, including social security numbers, individual taxpayer identification numbers, adoption taxpayer identification numbers, and this year's identity protection personal identification number. That last one being something you might not have unless you signed up to the program. It basically being a second ID number to help prevent identity fraud, which could be a good idea because identity theft has gone up due to the fact that the IRS and the government in general have been spewing money out of every poorer for the last couple of years, and people have been trying to grab some of it by stealing identities and filing fraudulent returns. If you want to protect yourself against that, you might think about another identification number. So filing an accurate tax return can help taxpayers avoid delays or later IRS notices, which is a good thing to avoid. Sometimes this means waiting to make sure individuals have accounted for all their income and the related documents. This is especially important for people who may receive one of the various forms 1099 from banks or other payers reporting unemployment compensation, dividends, pensions, annuities, or retirement plan distributions. This is usually the thing that makes people have to wait a bit making sure you get all these 1099s and whatnot and making sure that you have the finalized 1099s and they're not going to change it on you. So people should also remember that most income is taxable including unemployment income, interest received, or money earned from the gig economy or digital assets. Individuals should make sure they report the correct amount on their tax return to avoid processing delays. Visit IRS.gov first for questions. The IRS reminds people to visit IRS.gov first for common questions and also to check on the status of their refunds. IRS.gov has much of the same information the IRS phone assisters will have. So they hired a bunch of new phone assisters, there's a bunch of rookies, and even if they knew what they were talking about, in a lot of cases they may only have the same information you could find on IRS.gov so you might want to save your time and stress by checking IRS.gov and getting the answer there if you can. So the IRS anticipates making significant improvements to phone services this year for taxpayers and tax professionals. Once again, is that very specific in your mind? We're going to have significant improvements. What does that mean? Are the phone times going to go down to what? What do you think and when is that going to happen? And how many people are going to get through versus how many people got through before? How can we measure this significance of significant improvements? Vague language like that is usually bureaucratic language. It's usually kind of an evasive language. But you have to do that to some degree. I'm just saying it would be nice. I would have a lot more faith if there was a line being drawn and saying, this is what we're shooting for. You can call us out if we don't get there. So this year taxpayers and tax professionals as more training for new phone assistors is completed in the weeks ahead. However, the IRS emphasizes it's important to note that call volumes remain at historically high levels. The IRS urges people to visit IRS.gov for information. They need quote our phone volumes remain at very high levels and quote. Donald said quote for faster access to information. We urge people to start with IRS.gov. That's the website from their taxpayers can quickly access the variety of free resources available to help taxpayers anytime day or night. End quote speed refunds by filing electronically and choosing direct deposit. There are important steps people can take to help ensure their tax return and refund are processed without delays. The most important is to file electronically with direct deposit. So if you're looking for your refund the fastest, then you typically want to file electronically with direct deposit. If you're just looking to avoid penalties and interest and you're sending them a check, then maybe you want to send them a paper return and a paper check and let it lay on the pile and throw it on the pile. As long as they're not charging you penalties and interest. But even then it's kind of easier to make sure that they have received it and you get the verification and whatnot. So, you know, it's kind of a you got to weigh the pros and cons of being able to annoy them and send them a paper return. And and possibly they deposit it later versus, you know, getting the verification faster and whatnot in that case. But if you're getting a refund, you want it fast and electronic and direct deposit. You would think would be the way to go. This is still the fastest and easiest way to file and receive a refund to avoid delays and processing. People should avoid filing paper returns wherever possible. They don't like paper returns over there. You might have noticed. So to speed refunds the IRS urges people to file electronically with direct deposit information as soon as they have everything needed to file an accurate return. Individuals can use a bank account. Prepare debit card or mobile app to use direct deposit and will need to provide routing and account numbers with their return. Learn how to open an account at FDIC insured bank. There's a link to that here or through the National Credit Union Labor Tool. There's a link to that as well. IRS free file available January 13th. That's tomorrow, people. You can get your free file stuff. This is great. IRS free file will open January 13th when participating providers will accept completed returns and hold them until they can be filed electronically with the IRS. So in other words, the free file is a third party software that you might start to be able to get access to January 13th and start plugging your numbers in. But that doesn't mean that even if you filed it, it's not going to be accepted by the IRS until January 23rd. So you can file it possibly, but it's just going to be on hold. The IRS isn't going to accept it until January 23rd. So many commercial tax preparation software companies and tax professionals will also be accepting and preparing tax returns before January 23rd to submit the returns when the IRS system opens. The IRS free file program. There's a link to that here. That's the third party software that the IRS has somehow finagled into offering free returns if your income is below a certain threshold. It's available only at irs.gov. It's basically a link to third party software, but it's a nice organization place at irs.gov. Allows taxpayers who made $73,000 or less in 2022 to file their taxes electronically for free using brand name software provided by commercial tax filing companies. Free file fillable forms. A part of this effort is available to any income level and provides free electronic forms that people fill out and file themselves also at no cost. Now I wouldn't recommend actually using the free file fillable forms in general to file your tax returns because it's similar to doing the tax returns by hand, which is quite complex these days because the tax code is getting quite complex and changing quite rapidly. They're trying to say that it's available so they can say they have a free option for everyone. But in reality, if your income is below $73,000, you could get the tax software provided by third party providers, and that's great. If your income is above $73,000, then usually your tax situation is getting more complex, which means you don't want to do it by hand at that point. You'd probably want to at least buy the software at that point or actually look for a CPA firm that will help you not only with your immediate need of tax preparation, but also possibly be there for tax planning in the future. So most refunds issued in less than 21 days. That's an average. I wouldn't really count on that, but there's the average you can give to your clients and whatnot if you're a tax preparer. EITC, that's to earn income tax credit. Refunds for many available starting February 28. So there's a bit of delay if you have some of these refundable credits. So the IRS anticipates most taxpayers will receive the refund within 21 days of when they file electronically if they choose direct deposit and there are no issues with their tax return. Taxpayers should check where's my refund at IRS.gov. There's a link to that here for their personalized refund status. Well, the IRS will begin accepting returns January 23. The IRS cannot issue a refund that includes the earned income tax credit or additional child tax credit, the ACTC. Those are the refundable credits before mid February. This is due to the 2015 path act law passed by Congress, which provides this additional time to help the IRS stop fraudulent refunds from being processed from being issued. So obviously these credits because they're refundable and they they are meaning you can get a refund even if you have no tax due. They're going to be subject to fraud fraudsters are going to aim at those. So if they get they want a little bit more time to try to at least lessen some of the bleeding from issuing checks to fraudsters. So where's my refund should show an updated status by February 18 for most early EITC. That's earned income tax credit and E and ACTC advanced child tax credit filers. The IRS expects most EITC ACTC related refunds to be available in taxpayer bank accounts or on debit cards by February 28. If taxpayers choose direct deposit and there are no other issues with their tax return awaiting processing of previous tax returns. People can still file 2022 returns currently. The IRS has processed all paper and electronic individual tax year 2021 returns received prior to November 2022 that didn't require error correction or further review. The IRS continues to work on remaining tax returns in these categories. This work will not impact tax refund timing for people filing in 2023. But the IRS continues to urge people to make sure they submit an error free tax return this tax season to avoid delays. Check the IRS operations page. There's a link to that here for the latest information about the status of tax returns received in 2022. So then we've got the IRS dot gov IRS online account provide free help. Taxpayers can find online tools at IRS dot gov the IRS website that are easy to use and available anytime. Millions of people use them to help file and pay taxes find information about their accounts determine eligibility for tax credits and get answers to tax questions. An IRS online account allows individuals to log in securely to access personal tax account information including balance payments and tax records including adjusted gross income. So you might not be using your online account for the taxes that much which is kind of unusual because you know most people are using their online accounts for most other financial institutions bank accounts investing pay pals and that kind of stuff. So you would think the IRS should get that to the point where people are using it and feeling secure to use that the the excuse in the past has been that that there's personal information on it. But again, everybody's using all this other personal financial information stuff on all these other platforms. So you would think that they in the future would you would be logging into your online account and getting information like payment information and that kind of stuff from there. So there are various types of tax return preparers including enrolled agents certified public accountants attorneys and some who don't have a professional credential choosing a tax professional. There's a link to that here offers information to help people select one the directory of federal tax return preparers with credentials and selected qualifications. There's a link to that here can help take taxpayers find local preparers who currently hold professional credentials recognized by the IRS or hold an annual filing season program record of completion. The interactive tax assistant provides there's a link to that here answers to many tax law questions. For example, it can help people determine if a type of income is taxable or if they can deduct certain expenses. It also helps people find out if life event changes make them eligible for credits they didn't qualify for in the past and provides answers for general questions such as determining filing status if someone can claim dependence or if they have to file a tax return at all. Where's my refund? There's a link to that here offers taxpayers the ability to check the status of their refund within 24 hours after the IRS accepts their e file tax return. The where's my refund tool updates once every 24 hours usually overnight. So if you're checking it every five minutes every half hour every hour or something like that you need to calm down. You've got a problem. They only change it once a day. Check it twice a day max. Otherwise you're kind of you're kind of you're going crazy. So mill tax there's a link to that here is a free tax resource available for military community offered through the Department of Defense. Now mill tax is interesting because it's specifically for people in the military. But if you have under the threshold which was seventy three thousand was it then you might also have access to the tax software that is by the third party providers. Then the question is which is better. I don't really know because I would think everything else equal that the software that's competing on the market would be more heavily tested than something created by the government in general. But the mill tax is being made specifically for people in the military which again I would think those needs and there are special needs there's special questions that need to be asked for people in the military with regards to taxes. I would think those needs would be met as well by other software to but maybe it maybe they ask it more directly or something like that in the mill tax. I'm not sure if you can get top software that is proprietary software and usually have the capacity to enter the information necessary for people to have members of the military versus using the mill tax which is better. I don't know if anybody has any information on that I'd be curious to know I've never used mill tax. So it includes tax preparation and electronic filing software personalized support from tax consultants and current information about filing taxes. It's designed to address the realities of military life including deployments combat training pay housing and rentals multi state filing eligible taxpayers can use mill tax to electronically file there's a link. To that a federal tax return and up to three state returns for free. So and that those three state return returns if you are subject to three state returns can be interest useful because sometimes that's one of the limitations that the proprietary software has. So key filing season dates there are several important dates taxpayers should keep in mind for this year's filing season. You got January 13 that's the IRS free file open so you can start playing around with your software January 7 that's January 13 the IRS free file January 17 due date for tax year 2022 fourth quarter estimated tax payments. So if you have a sole proprietorship or something like that then you got to make your last estimated payments by January 17 instead of your withholdings if you're a W2 employee then January 23 IRS begins the 2023 tax season. And starts accepting and processing individual 2022 tax returns. January 27 earned income tax credit awareness day to raise awareness of valuable tax credits available to many people including the option to use prior year income to qualify. April 18 national due date to file a 2022 tax return or request an extension and pay tax owed due to the emancipation day holiday in Washington DC. So tax preparers remember that so you can shoot the breeze about why is it due April 18 this year. Well it's the emancipation holiday of Washington DC and their crazy holidays over there. I'm not exactly sure what's going on with it but you know they don't recognize my holidays but we but that's cool. We got a little bit more time October 16 due date to file those requesting an extension on their 2022 tax return. Before filing plan ahead people it's never too early to get ready for tax filing season. Although it might be a little too late right now but you still have some things you can do and you know the years over. Not a whole lot planning at this point for tax planning but that's it is what it is we go from this point forward. So for more tips and resources check out the get ready page it should be get ready to pay page. I think it sounds better but in any case it's on iris dot gov of course iris dot gov iris dot gov. There's a link to that here there'll be a link to the all this in the description.