The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has finally announced the 2015 filing season start date. And surprise! There’s no delay. Tax season for paper and electronically filed returns will open on January 20, 2015. That’s 11 days sooner than last year’s start date and 10 days sooner than the 2013 start date (though the 2012 season started a few days earlier on January 17).
Even better? There’s no tiered opening season. All taxpayers can begin filing on January 20, 2015. There was some concern about the tiered filing system because Congress had initially signaled that it might not sign off on all of the tax extenders. Congress eventually approved a tax extenders package which renewed all of those four dozen or so provisions for a year – with no changes – making it possible for all taxpayers to start filing at the same time. President Obama signed the tax extenders package into law on December 19, 2014.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said, about the extenders that, “[w]e have reviewed the late tax law changes and determined there was nothing preventing us from continuing our updating and testing of our systems.” He added, “Our employees will continue an aggressive schedule of testing and preparation of our systems during the next month to complete the final stages needed for the 2015 tax season.”
I’ll have more updates on the 2015 tax season as it is made available.
