Due to the government shutdown in October, IRS will not begin accepting electronic returns until January 31, 2014. Also, the IRS will not process paper returns until that date. IRS originally was planning to start accepting individual returns on January 21 so we have a 10 day delay. Considering the government shutdown was for 16 days, IRS is making up some of the delay. You can read the entire news release on the IRS’ website.
Interestingly, IRS will begin accepting business returns on January 13, 2014 – news release. Small businesses such as sole proprietors, landlords and farmers are subject to the later individual start date.
Business returns are typically due two months and 15 days after their year-end. For calendar year businesses, the original due date is usually March 15th. Perhaps this is the reason businesses will be able to file earlier. However, there are many more individual returns than business returns so more returns are affected by the later start for individual filers.
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