02/01/2022
The IRS has begun accepting and processing individual tax returns. This year, the IRS is strongly encouraging everyone to file as early as possible for several reasons:
1. The IRS is estimating that refunds will take a couple weeks longer, on average, to process this year, if not longer. As such, filing as soon as possible will help prevent any additional delays to your refunds.
2. It's harder for fraudsters to try and impersonate you and file a return on your behalf if you've filed already. Filing as early as you can helps reduce their chances of doing so. If they do, you will have to paper file, which is a nightmare right now.
3. Speaking of paper filing, the IRS continues to have a substantial backlog of tax returns to process. At last report, the IRS still had a backlog of some 35 to 41 million tax returns, 6-8 million of which were for individuals (Form 1040s). Most of these were ones that had been paper filed or had discrepancies on them that required additional manual processing, meaning those individuals' tax refunds have been delayed by up to 6-8 months or longer in some cases.
If you want or need help filing your taxes, let me know. I'd be happy to help!
