Now Congress is Calling the IRS “Preposterous” (At Least the Delay)!

On October 23, 2013, Representative Dave Camp, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee sent a very strongly worded letter to the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service calling for an explanation of how the IRS could delay the start of the 2013 tax filing season.  The letter strongly states that the IRS has been able to accommodate taxpayers in prior years with delays even longer than this 12 business day delay with no delay to the start of processing.

He also states that there have been no major tax law changes for over 9 months and there is still three months to go before the filing season starts.  It appears that he strongly suggests that the IRS is more concerned with implementing Obamacare than making sure tax season gets started on time.  However, if I was Mr. Camp, I am not sure if I would want to associate the IRS with the start of the Healthcare Exchange since this could suggest that the 2013 tax season may not start until 2015.

It would not surprise me to have the IRS issue a statement in the next few weeks that somehow they were able to overcome the delays caused by the shutdown and the 2013 tax season filing will start on time.  However, if the President and Congress are unable to get the debt ceiling raised early next year, we will be facing this same mess then.

We will keep you posted.

Paul Neiffer, CPA