What to Expect
Part I.
The Internal Revenue Service (The Service) tax filing for 2017 tax year has already begun, as of Monday, January 29, 2018. Even though our country has just enjoyed the Super Bowl Weekend, The Service has already begun accepting paper and electronic tax returns, over 155 million individual tax returns projected to be filed in 2018 even thought the official filing season was delayed one week!
As the The Service has published, it will accept both electronic, for those now worried about hacking problems, and paper returns. NB: Electronic returns will be processed immediately while the paper returns will not be processed until after February 15th, 2018. Of course, The Service vigorously seeks the taxpaying public will submit tax return electronically for faster refunds, assuming you will be getting a refund.
On the matter of refund, as mentioned above, I have seen very large refunds paid to the taxpayer in installments over a several-month period of time. Therefore, you may want to have some or all of your large refunds applied to the 2018 tax year, which will qualify as timely paid for 2018. However, you do lose any “opportunity benefits” for investment or merely earning interest even thought it is very low interest rates at this time.
For those of us, like myself, that are too busy with life to file on the deadline of April 15th, this year the deadline is April 17th, since April 15th falls on a Sunday in 2018, which would normally result with a move to the next business day, Monday April 16th, 2018. However, April 16, 2018 is Emancipation Day in Washington, D.C., so that further moves the official filing deadline, without extensions, to Tuesday, April 17th, 2018. Be careful, some states do not move to the April 17th extended time.
There is yet another possible postponement of your refund. The Service will hold refunds tied to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and/or the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) until at least February 15th, 2018. Oh, and then there are the other factors of the normal weekends and the President’s Day holiday to further push the refunds out.
You can check out Where’s My Refund? on IRS.gov or The Service for projected deposit dates by calling their 1-800 number. ©
Author: Michael B. Nelson ©