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USA Today
8 minutes ago
- USA Today
Will the 2026 tax season start late? IRS commissioner sparks speculation
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. 2025 tax rules: Trump's new tax deduction on auto loans has major limitations: What car buyers should know 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: stompor@ Follow her on X @tompor.
New York Post
8 minutes ago
- New York Post
$25 million taxpayer cash handed by DHS, FEMA to groups with extremist ties: report
Taxpayer funds totalling $25 million were handed to US groups with alleged links to terror organizations or extremist ideology, a bombshell new study has found. In a twist of irony, the funds were originally allocated to help deradicalize would-be terrorists, but may have ended up in the pockets of groups that support Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime, according to the report. The Department of Homeland Security gave out the cash through its disaster relief programs, including the embattled Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), between 2013 and 2024, according to the report released by the Middle East Forum, a think tank based in Philadelphia. 5 The Department of Homeland Security granted more than $25 million to extremist groups in the US, including nonprofits that support Hamas, a new study says. AP 5 Hostage Noa Argamani being abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7th, 2023. She is one of the fortunate hostages who has been released. AP 'We've seen the left allocate billions of dollars towards the latest woke pet projects, but the Middle East Forum's study of DHS spending uncovered something far more sinister,' said Ben Baird, a project director at the Middle East Forum and co-author of the study. 'Instead of protecting the homeland, the federal government is bankrolling extremists who idolize 9/11 hijackers and sympathize with the perpetrators of the October 7 massacre in Israel. 'Taxpayer dollars meant to strengthen American security were used to undermine public safety.' The group says it is now working with DHS to 'rescind grants to extremist groups' and work on making the granting process more transparent. Under President Biden, DHS established the Faith-Based Security Advisory Council (FBSAC) that works with the secretary of DHS to help with the security and emergency preparedness of religious institutions. 'The FBSAC provides advice and recommendations to the Secretary and other senior leadership on matters related to protecting houses of worship, preparedness and enhanced coordination with the faith community,' according to a description of the council on FEMA's website. 5 The Biden administration appointed CAIR founder Nihad Awad to a FEMA agency to consult on which religious groups should get funds for security and emergency preparedness. AFP/Getty Images Among the leaders appointed as consultants to the group was Mohamed Magid — director and imam of a controversial Virginia mosque complex that was raided in a federal counterterrorism investigation in 2002, although no charges were brought. Salaam al-Marayati, founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who once blamed 9/11 on Israel, was also a consultant to the group. Al-Marayati later said that his comments were taken out of context but he did not apologize for them, according to the Los Angeles Times. Neither Magid nor Al-Marayati returned a request for comment this week. Some of the groups DHS allocated money to have ties to extremists. Ones named in the report include: The Council on American Islamic Relations, which has links to extremist groups, including Hamas, received nearly $250,000 in DHS security grants to its national office in Washington as well as chapters in Miami and Los Angeles, the report says. 5 The Islamic Circle of North America has alleged links to Jamaat-e-Islam, which has been associated with terrorist attacks in Bangladesh. ICNA has denied that it works with the group. FEMA Federal prosecutors named CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terrorism funding case in US history. Ghassan Elashi, one of the leaders of HLF was also a founder of CAIR Texas. He was convicted and sentenced to 65 years for funneling $12 million to Hamas. And after the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, CAIR's founder Nihad Awad said he was 'happy to see' the terrorist strikes on the country. He later said his comments were taken out of context and that he condemned the violence on October 7. CAIR's spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said 'the American Muslim community has the same right to apply for nonprofit grants as other faith communities.' He added CAIR 'condemns all forms of unjust violence, including hate crimes, terrorism, ethnic cleansing and genocide as well as all forms of bigotry, including ani-Black racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism.' Elsewhere, DHS earmarked $10.3 million in disaster relief to the Islamic Circle of North America following Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The group was accused by the Middle East Forum and other think tanks that study extremism of acting as the US-based proxy for Jamaat-e-Islam, which has been linked to violence and terrorism in South Asia. ICNA has denied being a proxy for the group. The Islamic Society of Baltimore, a mosque and community center where the FBI conducted surveillance after it caught one of its members plotting to bomb an Army recruiting center in Maryland in 2010, was awarded $375,000 in DHS grants between 2017 and 2023, the report says. The group was under surveillance by the FBI for several years beginning in 2010 and was dubbed 'a breeding ground for terrorists.' The group did not return a request for comment. Mosques in Michigan and Texas that preach Iran's extreme brand of Shi'a Islam received $750,000. 5 A founder of CAIR Texas was sentenced to 65 years in federal prison for providing Hamas with more than $12 million. The terrorist group organized the October 7, 2023 attack against Israel that left 1,200 dead. The Islamic House of Wisdom, a mosque in Dearborn, received $330,000 in 2023, according to the report. The group is led by Imam Mohammed Ali Elahi, who has close ties to the Iranian regime and mourned the 2010 death of Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, Hezbollah's spiritual guide and a proponent of suicide bombing. Elahi did not return repeated requests for comment. Other groups with alleged ties to radicalism received the rest of the $25 million in grants, per Middle East Forum. 'DHS officials must be more discerning,' said the report. 'Under FEMA's latest… guidelines, grantees may use security grants to install bulletproof glass and security fencing, or even to hire armed security guards [at their US-based offices]. 'Should an insular, fundamentalist commune that expresses loyalty to Al Shabaab or Al-Qaeda receive funding for these purposes?' Since taking office, the Trump administration has fired hundreds of DHS employees in order to streamline the bureaucracy of the federal government. 'We won't rest until Congress ensures that future administrations cannot fund extremists in the name of fighting extremism,' Baird told The Post.
The Hill
8 minutes ago
- The Hill
How to achieve the balanced immigration policy Americans want
Terrified employees are not showing up to work. Children who are American citizens are being deported without due process. Crops are being left to rot because farms can't find workers to pick them. The Trump administration has claimed this is the price of a secure border. But Americans are no longer buying it. A record-high 79 percent of Americans now say immigration is a good thing for the country — a growing majority clearly believes U.S. policy should address immigration's benefits, as well as its risks. A balanced policy is possible. By the end of its time in office, the Biden administration had brought order to the border. In our new research paper, we examine the successes and shortcomings of Biden's term, offering lessons for a more pragmatic migration policy — one that advances America's broad range of economic, security and humanitarian interests. We would be the first to acknowledge that the Biden administration's response to record migration flows was imperfect. The administration was slow to support cities struggling with unprecedented migrant arrivals, ceded the narrative to its critics by playing defense on communications and waited too long to ramp up its enforcement efforts. But by the end of 2024, total monthly encounters at the Southern border fell from a high of 300,000 to fewer than 100,000. In fact, the number of authorized encounters at ports of entry via programs, such as CBP One and the special program for for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, exceeded the number of unauthorized encounters. Put another way, more than 80 percent of the current reduction we see in unauthorized border encounters occurred during the Biden administration. The Trump administration has reduced encounters from their prior levels by an additional 17 percent through costly and draconian measures. The immigration lessons from Biden's term are not always intuitive. First, enforcement and lawful pathways are not opposing strategies — they are interdependent. We have often heard the refrain of needing to crack down first, and only then consider expanding lawful pathways. But the data tells a different story. When the U.S. paired increased enforcement with credible legal alternatives, irregular crossings plummeted. It was this mix — not enforcement alone — that brought numbers down. Second, emergency parole programs were a key, if imperfect, tool. Humanitarian parole, including the CHNV process, allowed people to apply from where they were, enabling vetted migrants to join the U.S. labor force quickly, helping avoid a post-pandemic recession. That said, parole programs are not a durable solution. Congress must finally revisit decades-old visa caps and instead build a flexible and demand-driven approach that better matches migrants with labor needs across the skill spectrum. Third, regional cooperation mattered more than most Americans realize. Countries such as Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru gave legal status to over 4.5 million displaced Venezuelans, preventing an even larger surge north. The U.S. backed those efforts with foreign assistance and diplomacy. It paid off, as fewer people were forced to keep moving. It was far cheaper, too. Integration costs were estimated at $600 per migrant in Colombia, for instance, compared to the over $17,000 price tag to apprehend, detain and deport someone at the U.S. border. Western Hemisphere countries also worked together to increase migrant screening and vetting, coordinate on transit visa policies and investigate traffickers. Migration diplomacy under the Biden administration was a two-way street, with the U.S. encouraging countries to do more but also providing foreign assistance and political cover. When we recognize that migration is a hemispheric challenge, not just a U.S. one, we get better results. Finally, if we want to avoid the next migration surge, we need to understand what drove the last one. Yes, the Biden administration's shift in tone influenced flows at the border. But the deeper drivers were structural: a post-pandemic labor market desperate for workers; Title 42 expulsions that perversely encouraged repeated crossings; and the largest displacement crisis in the hemisphere's history, fueled mainly by Venezuela's economic collapse. Migration pressure doesn't simply disappear — it builds up. By slashing foreign aid, abandoning multilateralism and pouring resources almost exclusively into border security and internal enforcement, the Trump administration has bet everything on deterrence. If these tactics merely delay rather than prevent a future crisis, the administration may wish it had more tools available to respond. We share these lessons not to fight old battles but to shape a smarter way forward. Last month, a bipartisan group of House members reintroduced the Dignity Act, coupling a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants in the U.S. with stronger enforcement. There's a growing recognition in Congress that waiting for a 'grand bargain' has become an excuse for doing nothing. Narrow, targeted reforms — expediting work permits, closing asylum loopholes, expanding permanent and temporary lawful visas, creating a path to legal status for those who have lived here for many years, and promoting talent retention — are all achievable, necessary and in our national interest. Three decades of stalemate have made clear that inaction on immigration carries immense costs. Those who believe in a better way must seize the opportunity to pursue pragmatic policies, whenever it emerges.
