Tax filing season to begin early in 2022
ELKHART, Ind -- The IRS changes the tax filing date by moving it up 17 days early.
"Most people are waiting for their W-2 and 1099 and all of the various tax forms throughout the month of January anyways and so a lot of tummies people don’t get those until the end of the month anyways, so we can’t really get started on individual tax returns too much before that January 24th start date," said Korhron Financial Group Ryan Fair.
The new date serving as a precautionary move by the IRS to make the tax season easier for everyone because of the resurgence of Covid and the delays that will cause.
"The IRS has to program all of their computer systems to receive all of these tax returns that everyone’s going to be filing. I think the number, there’s going to be about 160 million tax returns filed throughout this upcoming tax filing season and so the computer systems have to be able to handle that and make sure all the calculations are correct," said Fair.
During this tax season, similar to 2021, tax preparers are working with stimulus checks.
This year, experts I talked with say more people might have more unfamiliar territory to wade through so this new start date just gives them more extra time to figure it all out.
"The three main things that I would say are related to the stimulus, reconciling the stimulus money that was received and also reconciling the child tax credit. The advanced payments that were received each month and then yea just making sure that you get everything rounded up and timely prepared. If you have to file an extension you can definitely do that," said Fair.