Just
before Trump’s shutdown of the government, a spokesman for the IRS said,
“The IRS is making great progress moving towards
the opening of the filing season. Each year, we test our programming and make
sure we have the right guidance and instructions ready to go for a successful
launch of the filing season.
“We are on track to be able to do that between
January and February, and of course as soon as we have completed all of our
testing, we’ll come out with a formal announcement for the opening of the
filing season.
“The IRS is positioned along with Treasury to have
the right personnel and staff available for us to continue with our on-time
plans to be able to deliver and open the filing season, so right now we are
tracking very well to have another successful filing season in 2019 as we did
in 2018.”
Sending refunds and providing taxpayer assistance,
however, is a different story …
9,946 IRS employees are considered essential and
would continue working. The balance of the 79,868 would be sent home, without
pay.
How could this affect you?
During the shutdown, the IRS will stop:
· Issuing refunds
· Processing Form 1040X amended returns
· All audits
· Processing paper tax returns that include payments
· Answering your questions
Needless
to say, none of this is good in the light of recent tax law changes and filing
season days away.
#IRS, #incometax, #filingseason