Special 2016 Federal Marketplace Enrollment Period for Individuals without Marketplace Insurance Due to Failure to File a 2014 Federal Return and Reconcile

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) which runs the Federal Marketplace has announced that there will be a special enrollment period that will run from now until March 31, 2016. This special enrollment period is for individuals previously determined to have been ineligible for the Advance Premium Tax Credit (subsidy) in 2016 because they failed to file a 2014 federal return and did not complete the required reconciliation on Form 8962 (Premium Tax Credit).

The special enrollment period specifically applies to individuals who:

• Are not currently enrolled in 2016 coverage through the Federal Marketplace;
• Are not receiving an Advance Premium Tax Credit (APTC) because they failed to file a tax return for 2014 and reconcile their 2014 APTC; and
• Subsequently filed their 2014 federal tax return and reconciled their 2014 APTC on Form 8962.

Click here to read the entire article on the CrossLink website.

Delay of State Refunds Due to State Tax Identity Theft Prevention

Since identity theft related tax refund fraud has become the biggest problem States face, individuals can expect their State refund to take longer to be direct deposited into their bank accounts than in the past. This is due to the additional fraud measures that all States have instituted this filing season to fight this type of refund fraud.

Some States have indicated that they will be delaying the release of refunds for longer periods of time as follows:

Illinois and South Carolina not issuing refunds until after March 1, 2016

Illinois and South Carolina will not be sending out refunds on any returns filed in January or February until mid-March. For those returns filed after March 1, 2016, the refunds will be sent out within two to three weeks from the date the Illinois or South Carolina individual return is accepted.

For more information see the Illinois and South Carolina websites:

• Illinois Refund Delay Alert
• South Carolina January 19 News Release – Enhanced Efforts to Protect Taxpayers from Refund Fraud

The following States have increased the length of time a refund will be received on electronically filed returns:

• Idaho – Taxpayers can expect their refund about 7 weeks after their return has been accepted. See the Refund Information page on the Idaho State Tax Commission website for more information.
• Georgia – Taxpayers can expect their refund 30 – 45 days after the return has been accepted. See the New Fraud Prevention Measures announcement on the Georgia Department of Revenue website for more information.
• Louisiana – Taxpayers can expect their refund up to 60 days after the return has been accepted. See the January 19 Press Release on the Louisiana Department of Revenue website for more information.
• Alabama – Taxpayers can expect their refund in 8 to 12 weeks from the date their return is accepted. See the Taxpayer Identity Theft Prevention page in the Things to Expect from ADOR in the 2016 Filing Season section on the Alabama Department of Revenue website for more information.
• Hawaii – Taxpayers can expect their refund in 4-6 weeks. Some refunds may be delayed for up to 16 weeks. See the Update on Tax Refunds (January 8, 2016) on the Hawaii Department of Taxation website for more information.

States delaying refunds due to not having W-2s from employers:

• Utah will delay any refunds until March 1, 2016 for individuals whose employer had not filed their W-2s with Utah by January 31, 2016. See the Withholding Tax Changes information on the Utah State Tax Commission website.
• Alabama will delay issuing refunds this year on returns for which the state has not received the W-2(s) from a taxpayer’s employer(s). This means that early Alabama filers will not receive their refunds as quickly as they have in prior years.
• Vermont may not complete the processing of some returns until they receive the W-2 from the individual’s employer, which is not due until February 29, 2016. For more information see the 2016 Filing Season Update page on the Vermont Department of Taxes website.

One last reason for a state refund to be delayed is when the State selects an individual’s tax return for identity verification. When this occurs, a letter is sent asking that the individual verify their identity by going to the State website and answering questions. Once the individual has passed the verification quiz (i.e. they have verified that this is their return), the State will finish processing the return and send out the refund. So it is important that if an individual receives a request to verify who they are that they do it as soon as possible.

IRS Electronic Filing PIN Application Attacked by Malware

The IRS Electronic Filing PIN application was attacked by malware this week. The IRS posted the following on their News page:

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The IRS recently identified and halted an automated attack upon its Electronic Filing PIN application on IRS.gov. Using personal data stolen elsewhere outside the IRS, identity thieves used malware in an attempt to generate e-File PINs for stolen social security numbers. An e-file PIN is used in some instances to electronically file a tax return.

No personal taxpayer data was compromised or disclosed by IRS systems. The IRS also is taking immediate steps to notify affected taxpayers by mail that their personal information was used in an attempt to access the IRS application. The IRS is also protecting their accounts by marking them to protect against tax-related identity theft.

IRS cybersecurity experts are currently assessing the situation, and the IRS is working closely with other agencies and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The IRS also is sharing information with its Security Summit state and industry partners.

Based on our review, we identified  unauthorized attempts involving approximately 464,000 unique SSNs, of which 101,000 SSNs were used to successfully access an e-File PIN.

The incident, involving an automated bot, occurred last month, and the IRS continues to closely monitor the web application.

This incident is not connected or related to last week’s outage of IRS tax processing systems.

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We will continue to monitor and update you as more information is released.

IRS Statement on System Outage

The IRS announced it resumed processing individual and business tax returns at approximately 5 p.m. Thursday following resolution of its system outage. Many of the tools and applications came up earlier on Thursday morning, including “Where’s My Refund” on IRS.gov.

“IRS teams worked throughout the night and around the clock on this system outage,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said. “Our processing systems are back in business. Taxpayers should see little, if any, impact on their tax returns or refunds. We apologize for the inconvenience this caused, and we appreciate the support and patience from taxpayers as well as our partners in the tax community and state revenue departments.”

The IRS emphasized that taxpayers do not need to take any additional steps or action due to the outage, including people who filed just before or during the outage. Throughout this period, taxpayers were able to continue to send their tax returns to their e-file provider; these companies have already started sending these tax returns into the IRS.

Taxpayers who have received a specific refund date from the “Where’s My Refund?” tool on IRS.gov should not be affected by the outage. The IRS reminds taxpayers that many variables factor into processing of tax refunds, including fraud prevention efforts, but we continue to anticipate that nine out of 10 taxpayers will receive their refunds within 21 days after being accepted by the IRS. In addition, the IRS reminds taxpayers that IRS.gov remains the best place to check for information on refunds. Additional information is available at: https://www.irs.gov/Refunds/What-to-Expect-for-Refunds-This-Year

The IRS is continuing to examine the underlying cause of the outage yesterday as well as monitoring any follow-up issues.  It's important to note that at this time this situation appears to be a hardware failure. 

IRS SYSTEM UPDATE

The IRS released the following update today regarding their systems:

IRS teams continued working throughout the night and this morning on the system outage, and many of our tools and applications came back up this morning, including “Where’s My Refund” on IRS.gov. We are continuing our work and analysis of our return processing system; we hope to have that back up again running at some point today. We will provide a further update later today.

While the e-file system for individual and business returns remains unavailable, the IRS reminds taxpayers they can still prepare and file tax returns as they normally would. Taxpayers can continue to send their tax returns to their e-file provider; these companies will hold the tax returns until the IRS resumes accepting electronic tax returns. Taxpayers who have already filed their tax returns do not need to take any additional action.

In addition, we continue to expect that 9 out of 10 taxpayers will receive their refunds within 21 days.

The IRS is continuing to examine the underlying cause of the outage yesterday.  It's important to note that this situation appears to be a hardware failure and nothing else. There is no indication that any external factors had any role in this incident.

Urgent Update on IRS Systems

PLEASE NOTE: CROSSLINK IS CONTINUING TO TAKE RETURNS and will submit them to the IRS once their systems come back online. See the Updated IRS statement below:

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IRS Statement:

The IRS experienced a hardware failure this afternoon affecting a number of tax processing systems, which are currently unavailable. Several of our systems are not currently operating, including our modernized e-file system and a number of other related systems. The IRS is currently in the process of making repairs and working to restore normal operations as soon as possible. We anticipate some of the systems will remain unavailable until tomorrow.

The IRS remains in close contact with e-file software transmitters and the tax community during this period.

A number of taxpayer and tax practitioner tools are unavailable. IRS.gov remains available, although a number of the services on the site are not, including Where’s My Refund.

Taxpayers can continue to prepare and file their tax returns as they normally would. Taxpayers can continue to send their tax returns to their e-file provider; these companies will hold the tax returns until the IRS resumes accepting electronic tax returns. Taxpayers who have already filed their tax returns do not need to take any additional action.

The IRS is still assessing the scope of the outage. At this time, the IRS does not anticipate major refund disruptions; we continue to expect that 9 out of 10 taxpayers will receive their refunds within 21 days.
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