IRS Announces 2017 Tax Filing Season Start Date

The 2017 Filing Season will begin on Monday, January 23, 2017 the IRS announced today. In its news release, the IRS also reminded taxpayers who will be claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and/or the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) to expect a longer wait for their tax refunds.

The filing deadline to submit 2016 tax returns is Tuesday, April 18, 2017.

Click here to read the full IRS news release.

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 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:

================
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.
=================

Additional State Requests/Actions and the IRS IP PIN for the 2016 Filing Season

As the January 19 start date for the 2016 filing season draws near, here are some of the new actions that States are instituting to help fight tax identity theft and refund fraud, as well as an update on the IRS Identity Protection PIN.

Request by States for Driver’s License for the Upcoming Filing Season
As part of their continuing effort to combat tax identity theft and fraud, States will be requesting additional information be included with the tax return to help them confirm that the return they are receiving is truly the taxpayer’s. Providing the requested information will help ensure that the taxpayer’s tax refund will go to them and not to an identity thief.

One piece of information that nearly all States will be requesting is information from the taxpayer’s and spouse’s driver’s license or state-issued identification card. Although a return will not be rejected if the requested information from the driver’s license or state identification card is not present in the taxpayer’s return, not providing this information may delay the processing of the return and cause a delay in receiving any refund associated with the return.

Other State Actions to help Prevent Identity Theft and Tax Fraud
Below are some examples of new processes put in place by Illinois, Alabama, and Virginia that begin in the 2016 filing season:

• Illinois will not be sending out refunds on returns filed in January and 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 return is accepted.
  See the Illinois Refund Alert on the Illinois Revenue website for more information.
• Virginia has begun to issue 7 alphanumeric Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) to Virginia taxpayers who have been identified as victims of identity theft. If a Virginia taxpayer is issued a PIN they must enter it on their Virginia individual income tax return to ensure that it is processed in a timely manner.
  See the Tax Related Identity Theft Prevention page on the Virginia Department of Taxation website for more information.
• 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.

IRS Identity Protection PIN (IP PIN)
Beginning with the 2016 filing season, the IRS requires that an identity protection PIN (IP PIN) be entered on the 2015 tax return if an individual that is claimed as a dependent on a tax return has received an IP PIN from the IRS. Otherwise, the IRS will reject the tax return.

As a reminder, the IRS issues IP PINs to individuals who have had an identity theft indicator applied to their IRS tax account. These individuals will receive the IP PIN via IRS notice CPO1A this month (January).

Important Note: Due to an error, the IRS is emphasizing that all IP PINs that are contained in the CP01A notices that an individual receives this month (January) are for filing the 2015 tax return even though the notices incorrectly state they are for filing the 2014 tax return.

Other things to know about the Identity Protection PIN:

• If an individual loses their IP PIN, the original can be retrieved via the online IRS Get an Identity Protection PIN tool on the IRS website.
• Individuals who had an IP PIN in 2015 (for Tax Year 2014) should have received a new 6 digit IP PIN from the IRS this month (January) via IRS notice CP01A.
• When the taxpayer’s, spouse’s and/or dependent’s IP PIN is entered in the CrossLink program, they will be transmitted to the IRS as part of the Form 1040. The taxpayer’s IP PIN will print on Form 1040 in the area designated in the signature area. The Spouse’s and Dependent’s IP PIN will not print on the Form 1040 because the IRS has not included a place for them on the printed Form 1040.
• The IRS may also invite an individual to get an IP PIN by sending them a letter because their account met specific criteria that made them eligible to receive an IP PIN.

See the Identity Protection PIN page and the IP PIN FAQ page on the IRS website for more information.

IRS, States, and Tax Industry Announce New Steps to Help Public Protect Personal Data in order to Prevent Tax Identity Theft

The IRS has just announced their new “Taxes. Security. Together.” campaign which is designed to help raise public awareness about how their use of the internet and their personal devices can affect the safety of their financial and tax data. It will urge individuals to take active steps to protect themselves and make them aware of just how sophisticated identity thieves have become.

Included in the “Taxes. Security. Together.” campaign is information about how the IRS, state tax administrators, and the tax software industry are implementing an expanded series of protections for the upcoming 2016 filing season to address tax related identity theft. These added protections will include asking individuals for additional information that will be included with their tax return. The additional information will help government agencies ensure that the return they are accepting is truly the taxpayer’s and not one that is being filed by someone who has stolen their identity.

The “Taxes. Security. Together.” campaign is a direct result of the IRS Security Summit, a collaborative effort started in March 2015 between the IRS, states, and the tax industry to help fight tax identity theft (of which CrossLink Professional Tax Software has been a part of).  This joint campaign will include YouTube videos, weekly Tax Tips, and local events across the country. This information will also be included on state websites and by the professional tax software community during this upcoming filing season.

For more information on this campaign, see the following on the IRS website:

• Taxes. Security. Together webpage – Explains how taxpayers, tax preparers, and businesses can help fight tax identity theft.

• IRS News Article 2015-129 (IRS, States and Tax Industry Announce New Steps to Help Public to Protect Personal Tax Data)

• IRS Fact Sheet 2015-23 (IRS, States and Industry Partners Provide Update on Collaborative Fight Against Tax-Related Identity Theft)

• IRS News Article 2015-117 (IRS, States, Industry Continue Progress to Protect Taxpayers from Identity Theft)

IRS, Industry, and State Security Summit and Collaborative Effort to Fight Identity Theft

The IRS joined with representatives of the tax software industry and state tax administrators on June 11, 2015 to announce the new collaborative effort to help protect the nation’s taxpayers from identity theft and tax fraud.

CrossLink has been part of this effort for the past three months and looks forward to being part of the continuing partnership with other tax industry companies, the IRS, and states in the months ahead to help combat the growing impact of identity theft to the federal and state tax systems.

This effort began in March 2015 with the establishment of three teams that focused on developing ways to improve tax return authentication and validation, information sharing between the industry, IRS, and states, and fraud detection and assessment of risks in order to develop strategies in preventing emerging threats.

The members of the IRS Security Summit agreed to several new initiatives in the following areas:

• Taxpayer authentication - Industry and government groups identified numerous new data elements that can be included with the return to help authenticate the taxpayer and detect identity theft fraud.
• Fraud detection - An agreement was made to expand the sharing of fraud leads between industry and government.
• Information assessment - The groups will look at establishing a formalized Refund Fraud Information and Assessment Center to more efficiently share information between the public and private sector to help identify fraud schemes and reduce the risk to taxpayers.
• Cyber-security framework - Industry agreed to align with the IRS and states under the National Institute of Standards and Technology cyber-security framework to promote the protection of the information technology infrastructure.
• Taxpayer awareness and communication - A joint effort between the IRS, states, and industry to increase the effort to inform taxpayers and raise awareness of the importance of protecting taxpayers’ sensitive personal tax and financial data to help prevent identity theft and refund fraud.

To learn more about this new IRS, industry, and state collaborative effort to fight identity theft and protect taxpayers, see the following on the IRS website:

• IRS news release on IRS, Industry, and State Security Summit
• 2015 IRS Security Summit Report
• IRS Security Summit page

IRS Security Summit Working Group Kick-Off Meeting

The tax software industry, IRS, and state tax administrators will be holding their kick-off meeting to discuss ways to address identity theft, refund fraud, and data security on April 2, 2015 in Washington, D.C. The goal of these working groups is to collaborate on finding solutions that will help mitigate identity theft in the tax system.

Petz Enterprises is glad to be part of this discussion and happy that IRS Commissioner Koskinen is making identity theft a priority.

Our goal has been, and will continue to be, bringing whatever resources are necessary to help combat tax related identity theft. By working with the IRS and state tax agencies, we will continue to be at the forefront of this issue.

Our customers have benefited from the security features that we have included in our product to help protect them from this very serious problem, and we will continue to look at adding more in the future.

We are looking forward to working with the IRS, State governments, and other members of the tax industry to help address the issue of identity theft and security in these working groups over the next few months.

BREAKING: IRS Announces Start Dates for 2015 Filing Season

Today, the IRS announced that the start of the 2015 filing season will be as follows:

Individual returns (1040): Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Business returns (Corporate, S-Corp and Partnership): Friday, January 9, 2015

See the Tax Season Opens As Planned Following Extenders Legislation news release on the IRS website for more information.

IRS Earned Income Tax Credit Compliance Efforts for Upcoming Filing Season

In a continuing effort to improve Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) preparer due diligence, the IRS will be performing the following educational and due diligence audit activities this fall and during the 2014 Filing Season.

The IRS continues to use a risk based scoring model to classify preparers of EITC returns. Based on this score, a preparer may be subject to one of the following:

• Warning Compliance Letter 
  The IRS will send approximately 11,000 letters regarding specific errors that they observed on 2012 returns to medium risk preparers prior to the filing season that will include the following:
  • Inform the preparer that they may have submitted inaccurate returns
  • State the primary EITC issues the IRS observed
  • Explain the consequences to the taxpayer and preparer for filing inaccurate EITC returns
  • List what their due diligence requirements are
These letters are designed to help the preparers file more accurate EITC returns in the future. The IRS will be monitoring these preparers as the 2014 Filing Season begins and may do a follow-up with these preparers if they do not see improvement. This action may be a phone call, additional warning letter, or due diligence audit.
See Reaching Out To Preparers on the IRS EITC Central website for more information and to see examples of the letters.
• Educational Visit
  
  This fall, an IRS agent and criminal investigator will conduct educational visits to preparers whom the IRS believes have filed EITC claims with a high chance of error. The goal of these visits is to help preparers understand what the errors were and how to avoid them. They will also discuss the consequences of filing inaccurate returns and what their due diligence requirements are.
  No penalties are assessed during these visits; however, the IRS will be closely monitoring EITC returns filed by these preparers during the 2014 Filing Season. If the IRS does not see improvement the IRS will conduct a due diligence audit during the filing season.
  See Visiting Preparers Filing Highly Questionable Returns on the IRS EITC Central website for what occurs during these visits.
• Due Diligence Audits
  
  The IRS will again be conducting around 1,000 due diligence audits with 700 standard audits performed during the fall of 2013 based on 2012 EITC returns, and 300 real-time audits will be performed during the filing season based on 2013 EITC returns.
  The IRS conducts a due diligence audit on preparers whom they consider to be filing a large number of highly questionable EITC claims.
  See Auditing for Due Diligence Compliance on the IRS EITC Central website for more information on what occurs during a EITC due diligence audit.
  Since a Real-Time Due Diligence audit has some differences from the standard due diligence audit, see the Real Time EITC Preparer Pilot page on EITC Central website for what these differences are.

To learn more about the IRS EITC compliance program see the following on the IRS EITC website:

• EITC Preparer Compliance — Targeted, Tailored and Tiered
• EITC Preparer Due Diligence

IRS Change for Filing Federal Individual Returns for Same-Sex Couples

The IRS announced on August 29, 2013 that all legal same-sex married couples will be treated as married for Federal tax purposes (including income and gift and estate taxes) as of September 16, 2013.

The ruling contained in IRS Revenue Ruling 2013-17 implements the Federal tax aspects of the June 26, 2013 Supreme Court decision invalidating a key provision of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.

The new rule applies to legally married same sex couples regardless of whether they reside in a State that recognizes same-sex marriage or in a State that does not recognize the validity of same-sex marriages.

It does not apply to registered domestic partnerships, civil unions, or similar formal relationships recognized under state law.

For 2013 and beyond, same sex married couples must file their individual Federal return using either a filing status of married filing jointly or married filing separately. For 2012, this applies only if their original return for 2012 was filed on or after September 16, 2013. If the 2012 return was filed before September 16, 2013, they may choose (but are not required) to amend their 2012 Federal return.

This ruling is also retroactive to any prior open tax years if they were legally married during those years. As a result, they may file an amended return for Tax Years 2010, 2011, or 2012.

This ruling does not affect how a State individual return is filed if the State does not recognize the validity of same-sex marriages. We will continue to provide updates as more information on what filing status is available to same-sex married couples for State individual returns is released.

For more information see the following on the IRS website:

• IRS Announcement of August 29, 2013
• IRS Revenue Ruling 2013-17
• FAQs for Same-Sex Couples
• FAQs for Registered Domestic Partners and Individuals in Civil Unions

Another tax season is behind us!

Another tax season is behind us!

From everyone at CrossLink, we would like to thank you for another successful tax season! Please make sure to follow us throughout the off-season for the most current CrossLink and tax industry updates in preparation for the 2014 Tax Season.

Follow us:

• Facebook: www.facebook.com/crosslinktax
• Google+: gplus.to/crosslink
• Twitter: @CrossLinkTax

IRS Update: New IRS Tool for Offers in Compromise

In an effort to help taxpayers that have an outstanding tax debt determine whether they may be eligible for an offer in compromise, the IRS has added a new Offer in Compromise Pre-Qualifier tool to their website. Read more

By adding this tool, the IRS believes that taxpayers and tax practitioners will save time by doing the work in advance of filing their return to determine if an offer in compromise is worth pursuing. This is important because an offer is generally not accepted if the IRS believes the tax liability can be paid in full as a lump sum or through a payment agreement. Read more

Click here to read the entire CrossLink Tax Update about the new IRS tool for Offers in Compromise.