PATH question

[Aecoop]

I filed on 1/14,accepted 1/17. I have both transcripts since 1/27. I used TT AND Santa Barbara. The 15th is Wednesday which will be about 23 days since I was accepted. I’m hoping for an update. My transcript says 2/13/2017 with cycle codes of 20170405.

So the people who filed early have to wait until the 15th, I get it and I was prepared. If, by chance, I had waited until the 15th to file would I still have had to wait? It doesn’t make sense. Early filers have to wait. If someone wants to be fraudulent they will no matter what date they file. So can someone explain to me how the PATH act will affect those who choose to wait to file?

[Jenni719]

The point of the hold is not for the IRS to do additional fraud checks on the people whose refund their holding. The purpose is to allow legitimate filers a chance to file before they pay out refunds.

In the past, the IRS processed returns on a ‘first come, first serve’ basis. Fraudsters who did not have a legitimate claim to a dependent knew this, so they would file early to get a jump on the legitimate claims. People with legitimate dependents often do not file right away because they’re waiting to get all their paperwork together before filing. So the IRS would give the refund to the first person to claim a dependent, whether they had a legitimate claim or not, while the legitimate claimant would have to fight with IRS to get their refund.

So by hold all refunds with credits based on claiming dependents, they are able to give legitimate claimants a chance to get their paperwork together and file. I am assuming that on the 15th, they will have a report that reflects all the duplicate dependents and will be act quicker to determine which one is legitimate.

[Ro]

Employers were required to submit W2’s to the IRS by Jan 31st this yr; in previous yrs they had until the end of March. This law now enables the IRS to compare people’s tax returns with the info on their W2’s; if it doesn’t match, then it is flagged as possibly being fraudulent

[Jennis]

I was told it was for everyone and not just early filers.
I filed 1/26
Accepted the same day with both credits and education credits
I have the path act message.
(Not an early filer)

[Author]

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