Here we go again: Another delayed tax season for 2014

The 16-day federal government closure in October came during the peak period for preparing IRS systems for the 2014 filing season and those loss of days means the 2014 tax season, similar to 2013, will start later than usual.Programming, testing and deployment of more than 50 IRS systems including safeguards to provide additional refund fraud and identity theft detection and prevention is needed to handle processing of nearly 150 million tax returns. Updating these core systems is a complex, year-round process with the majority of the work beginning in the fall each year.Although the April 15 tax deadline is set by statute, the shutdown caused a delay of approximately two weeks to the start of the 2014 filing season to allow adequate time to program and test tax processing systems.The IRS is exploring options to shorten the expected delay. Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said, "The original start date of the 2014 filing season was Jan. 21, and with a one- to two-week delay, the IRS would start accepting and processing 2013 individual tax returns (both paper and e-filed) no earlier than Jan. 28 and no later than Feb. 4. We want the public and tax professionals to know about the delay well in advance so they can prepare for a later start of the filing season.”For more information, see the original article. For tax and financial planning contact Patrick & Robinson CPAs at Office@CPAsite.com or 904-396-5400.