Will the 2026 tax season start late? IRS commissioner sparks speculation

USA Today

a day ago

Sure, we're in back-to-school season, but tax pros already are speculating about the potential for a delayed start for the 2026 tax season.
The buzz began building after Billy Long, the new IRS commissioner, was quoted in a July 29 article in The Tax Adviser, a monthly publication of the American Institute of CPAs, as well as the Journal of Accountancy.
Long said that the 2026 filing season should start around Presidents Day, which is on Monday, Feb. 16 next year.
Gulp, are we talking about a potential three-week delay here? Which could mean many early filers would have to wait even longer for their tax refunds?
Not so fast, says the IRS in a statement issued after Long made his comments during a Q&A session at the 2025 Tax Summit of the National Association of Enrolled Agents in Salt Lake City. We're being told that things might not be that dire after all.
This year, Internal Revenue Service began accepting and processing individual federal income tax returns on Jan. 27.
Kicking off the tax season on Feb. 16 would mean we're talking about a roughly three-week delay.
According to the article in the Tax Adviser, Long said he pushed for an earlier date but said that IRS staff wanted more preparation time. Long claimed that he was told staff would "need every day in there. But they have this thing down."
Not surprisingly, the IRS seemed to back off that claim, according to an IRS statement in an article that Politico posted online Aug. 4.
Tax Notes, a publication for tax professionals, posted the same IRS statement in its story online Aug. 5 with the headline "IRS walks back commissioner's filing season prediction."
What IRS says now about next year's tax season
The IRS statement on the tax filing date, which I later received by email as well, didn't deny Long's comments but offered some hope if you read between the lines.
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The statement, first issued July 30 according to the IRS, concluded: "The IRS looks forward to another successful tax filing season next year, and we will announce the timing of its opening in the regular course."
According to the July 30 statement, "IRS Commissioner Billy Long is in his second week of a 'boots on the ground' tour of IRS facilities with visits last week in Georgia and this week in Utah."
The IRS said: "Billy cares about two groups of people: his employee-partners and taxpayers. He is gathering information on what enhancements can be made to provide an exceptional taxpayer experience for the American people."
No kickoff date is set in stone yet.
Last year, the IRS issued a news release on Jan. 10 to state that the 2025 tax season would start on Monday, Jan. 27, 2025.
When will the IRS begin accepting tax returns? It's a popular question that readers search for online as the calendar year comes closer to an end.
But remember, we likely have five months to go from now before the IRS announces when the agency will begin accepting and processing more than 140 million individual income returns for the 2025 tax year.
My guess? The speculation has only just begun. Fingers crossed, and it will all work out. Don't bet too heavily against the possibility for at least a few glitches along the way.
Some tax professionals remain cautiously optimistic
Mark Luscombe, principal analyst for Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting in Riverwoods, Illinois, told me that the good news for the IRS is that the "One Big, Beautiful Bill Act" passed in early July instead of the end of December.
"This would normally give the IRS time to prepare for the filing season," Luscombe said.
Yet, there are potential glitches, he said.
First, the IRS is dealing with significant staff reductions.
Luscombe said it's hard to know whether staff reductions affected some key positions at the IRS. But he suggested that if IRS staff at one point told the IRS commissioner that the start of the filing season would probably need to be delayed well into February, then "that is an indication that the staff is concerned about being ready in time for the start of the tax season."
On top of that, Luscombe said, Congress is talking about the possibility of another tax bill this year, which could potentially hit late in the year and also affect the start of tax filing season.
"If the IRS staff says they need until Presidents Day in 2026, I would take them at their word, which would also mean delayed refunds compared to other more recent years," Luscombe said.
No doubt, the IRS will do all it can within its power to avoid the uproar that would take place with any Presidents Day launch.
"My interpretation of last week's comments is that the IRS is concerned but still trying to avoid a long delay," said Janet Holtzblatt, senior fellow for the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
If the launch of the filing season is delayed, she said, it will more likely be due to the 25% reduction in IRS staff than to the tax law changes and new deductions in the one big bill.
"The legislation was signed on July 4, which typically would give the IRS sufficient time to implement the new legislative provisions," she said.
Typically, when the IRS has had to delay the kickoff date for the tax season, she said, it has been after Congress enacts tax legislation very late in the year. Often, some delays are limited to very specific complicated provisions associated with the new tax laws.
For example, she said, the American Taxpayer Relief Act was enacted on Jan. 2, 2013, and had some retroactive provisions for 2012 returns.
In that case, the filing season officially began on Jan. 30, 2013, but the IRS began accepting 2012 returns in various phases as it worked quickly to update forms and instructions to reflect the new law.
The tax season essentially was delayed for some filers claiming particular tax breaks on 2012 returns. In 2013, for example, the IRS began accepting tax returns on Feb. 10 from people claiming depreciation deductions. Taxpayers claiming education credits had to wait until Feb. 14. "It wasn't until March 4 that everyone could file," Holtzblatt said.
The IRS had to reprogram and test its systems for tax year 2012, including all updates required by the American Taxpayer Relief Act enacted by Congress in January 2013.
In recent years, Holtzblatt said, the latest opening day for tax season occurred during the pandemic. The 2021 filing season did not begin until Feb. 12.
"If the filing season is delayed, refunds will also be delayed," she said. "Perhaps, the IRS can still manage to avoid long delays, but the task will be challenging with a 25% reduction in staff and a remaining workforce that may well be demoralized."
We're talking about more than one big change in tax rules that will impact 2025 tax returns — a new tax deduction of up to $6,000 for those age 65 and older who qualify; a tax deduction on overtime pay; a tax deduction on the interest paid on new car loans, and more.
"The fact that there are changes in the law that impact this tax year means the IRS and Treasury must work diligently to both send out appropriate guidance to taxpayers and prepare for changes to filing to accommodate those changes next spring," said Garrett Watson, director of policy analysis at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.
Once again, we don't actually know when the 2026 tax season will start.
The IRS typically isn't announcing the start of filing season in the summer just days before school starts.
But this summer, we all started talking about one big bill and tax breaks around the Fourth of July.
So, I guess it's natural that some soon will be asking once again: When does the IRS begin accepting tax returns? Sort of like seeing artificial Christmas trees sprout up for sale in October.
Contact personal finance columnist Susan Tompor: [e-mail]. Follow her on X @tompor.