Tax season set to start on Jan. 23, says IRS

Written By??Michael Cohn

January 12, 2023, 2:04 p.m. EST

The Internal Revenue Service set the official date for the opening of tax season, with Monday, Jan. 23, 2023, the day when the agency will begin accepting and processing 2022 tax year returns.

More than 168 million individual tax returns are anticipated to be filed, with most of them coming before the April 18 tax deadline. People will get three extra days to file their taxes thanks to this year's calendar.

With the three prior tax seasons significantly affected by the pandemic, the IRS has taken extra steps for 2023 to improve service for taxpayers. As part of the August passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS has hired more than 5,000 new telephone assistors and added more in-person staff to help support taxpayers.

National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins released an?annual report?Wednesday that found the IRS made progress on catching up with the backlog of the millions of unprocessed tax returns and correspondence last year, showing some cautious signs of hope for this tax season (see story).?The IRS received an extra infusion of funding last year from Congress after complaints about backlogs and difficulty reaching anyone on the IRS phone lines, including the dedicated Practitioner Priority Service for tax professionals.

"This filing season is the first to benefit the IRS and our nation's tax system from multi-year funding in the Inflation Reduction Act," said Acting IRS Commissioner Doug O'Donnell in a statement.?"With these new additional resources, taxpayers and tax professionals will see improvements in many areas of the agency this year. We've trained thousands of new employees to answer phones and help people. While much work remains after several difficult years, we expect people to experience improvements this tax season. That's just the start as we work to add new long-term transformation efforts that will make things even smoother in future years. We are very excited to begin to deliver what taxpayers want and our employees know we could do with this funding."

These steps occurred as the IRS worked for months to prepare for this tax season. The Jan. 23 start date for individual tax return filers gives the IRS some time to perform its annual updates and readiness work to make sure the IRS systems run efficiently. That's the date IRS systems officially start accepting tax returns. Many software providers and tax professionals are already accepting tax returns; they will transmit those returns to the IRS when the agency begins accepting tax returns on Jan. 23.

The IRS urges people to have all the information they need before they file a tax return. Filing a complete and accurate tax return can avoid extensive processing and refund delays as well as avoid the possibility of needing to file an amended tax return.

In addition, the IRS is encouraging taxpayers to carefully review their tax situation to make sure they don't overlook important tax credits they may be eligible for, like the Earned Income Tax Credit. The IRS has set a special day on Jan. 27 to encourage people to make sure they understand the important benefits of the EITC, a credit that can help low- and moderate-income workers and families.

Michael Cohn | Editor-In-Chief, AccountingToday.Com