Government Shutdown Delays Filing Start Date for 2014 Tax Returns Ms. Bels Monday, December 16, 2013 The Receipt, Your Money and You If you were planning to file your tax returns in January, you may be a little disgruntle to learn that the filing start date has been pushed back. The government shutdown affected many agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, causing them to close their offices for about a week or two. During this time of closure, most agencies were prevented from working on any daily tasks or special projects. The IRS, for example, was affected tremendously and is still experiencing a bit of delay on work assignments. And taxpayers will continue to see this delay in the coming month. In October, the IRS announced that taxpayers should expect to see a delay in the start date by one to two weeks. The original start date was January 21. Now, we shouldn’t begin filing out taxes until February 4. The reason for the delay is so that the IRS can conduct proper testing of various processing systems. The government closure came during the peak period for preparing IRS systems for the 2014 filing season. Programming, testing and deployment of more than 50 IRS systems 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 of each year. About 90 percent of IRS operations were closed during the shutdown, with some major workstreams closed entirely during this period, putting the IRS nearly three weeks behind its tight timetable for being ready to start the 2014 filing season. There are additional training, programming and testing demands on IRS systems this year in order to provide additional refund fraud and identity theft detection and prevention. The tax deadline of April 15 is still as is. The IRS states that no filings sent in prior to February 4 will be processed. Therefore, they heavily suggest that taxpayers wait. If needed, there is always the option to file an six-month extension. To do this, complete and send in Form 4868. Also, the quickest way to recieve your refund is to prepare an e-file with direct deposit.
