According to Bloomberg, 2015 is the worst tax season in a long time. With the new Obamacare requirements, identity theft, IRS funding issues and taxpayers taking their time, there should be a rush at the end when April 15th comes.
Obamacare didn’t have income verification in place when it rolled out on HealthCare.com, so new enrollees estimated their income and got subsidies. The IRS is now reporting that 50% of enrollees underestimated their incomes, got a bigger subsidy than allowed, and now are having their tax refunds cut by $530. And for the 11% of Americans without health coverage they might be facing a penalty somewhere around $170.
States are reporting an increase in fraudulent tax returns being filed in other people’s names. Minnesota stopped accepting returns from TurboTax for a short period of time as identity thieves like the popular software the most. You would think that would cause tax payers to rush to file before someone files in their name, no.
The IRS says that 335,000 fewer returns have been filed this year compared to last year at this time and processing opened 11 days earlier. Maybe taxpayers realize the IRS is underfunded and cannot audit as many as they did before. So the tax filers are filing late after all the audits have been selected for the current period.
Worst tax season in decades