The Internal Revenue Service announced on Friday that the official start date for accepting and processing last year's tax returns will begin on Friday, February 12.

Typically, the IRS begins accepting the previous year's returns in the final days of January.  The IRS has cited tax law changes made at the end of December of last year as the reasoning for the delayed processing date.

New tax laws passed in December require the IRS to initiate additional programming and testing of these changes.  The delay will aid in more time to test IRS programming to provide for more accurate tax return assessing by the revenue service and provide for faster depositing of return money.

The IRS is planning on 9 out 10 taxpayers will receive their refund within 21 days of filing if there are no issues with the tax return.

To get your refund as quickly as possible, the IRS is urging taxpayers to file electronically and set yourself up to get direct deposit.  They go on to state that filing with a paper return could lead to delays in receiving your refund payment.

If you are filing with a refund that involves the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) or Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC), please be aware that refunds will start being processed in mid-February with first payments to begin to be issues the first week of March, if there are no issues with your tax return.  This delay is due to the PATH Act, which requires the IRS to wait on processing these returns to provide more time to help the IRS identify fraud.

 

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