How Does the Government Shutdown Affect Your Taxes?

Many of you may be concerned about how the government shutdown will affect the IRS and the upcoming tax filing season.

Certain departments are open, but these are mainly for tax return processing.  

Questions that you may have include:

When can you file?

The 1040 filing season will start on January 28th, and the IRS will be accepting both paper and electronically filed returns.

Will you receive IRS notices?

The IRS will not be conducting audits during the shutdown but will continue to send automated letters to taxpayers.

Can you call the IRS?

You can call, but, most likely, no one will answer. Automated response lines will remain open.

Can you send in correspondence?

Similar to above, you can certainly mail correspondence to the IRS, but the IRS warns responses will be extremely limited and slow.

Identity Theft Issue?

Due to the furlough, there is a possibility that early filed returns will not be checked as thoroughly as usual. Limited staff and the need to process refunds quickly could allow fraudulent returns to be submitted and processed with less oversight. If you currently have an identity theft issue, make sure you have your PIN from the IRS.

We are monitoring the situation and how it affects our clients. If you have any questions, please contact your Anchin Relationship Partner.