One cause presumably is our senators and representatives not working fast enough during the fiscal cliff debacle to finalize tax laws. And the effect? Taxpayers are now awaiting the IRS to update forms, publications, instruction and of course the systems to reflect changes and start running our returns through properly. The IRS aimed for January 22nd to be ready, but of course the ripple affect kicked in and we see that date now pushed to the 30th to begin acceptance and processing of the early filing crew’s returns. This is not new. Last year some taxpayers had to wait until nearly the end of February for some forgone forms to be available. So those of us with relatively simple returns may not have to wait for special forms such as the education credit forms, but we are waiting in the front of the line with our basic 1040’s ready to go. Will the ripple result in the same delays of refunds that we saw last year? What have we learned? We are seeing some IGMR return visitors from last year that say they are waiting to pull the trigger and file. taxpayers going to wait longer to file this year. I’d like to offer a lesson we need to yield, don’t speculate and spend with hopes of the IRS refund times of yesteryear. Until that deposit is confirmed and visible in your bank account, taxpayers must work with what they have, which for some is not much of anything this time of year as many live refund to refund. I saw many sad and even devastating scenarios reported on our site last year, and truly pray the ripple effect doesn’t produce those same results. We shall see. In the meantime as we wait to see how the 2013 tax season unfolds, don’t blame the tax man—our elected senators and representatives steer this ship and we are responsible for those elections. My proactive advice is to not only cast your vote in every election, but to educate yourself and look at the track records of those politicians we vote into office. That’s my mini rant for the day. Key Jeopardy waiting music now.
