The United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has declared that it plans to open the 2014 tax filing season on January 31 instead of the original opening date of January 21. The new opening date for individual to file their tax returns for 2013 will allow the IRS sufficient time to program and test its processes, with more than 50 IRS systems needed to handle processing of the nearly 150m tax returns, said Danny Werfe acting Commissioner of IRS.
The 2014 opening date is one day later than the 2013 filing season opening, which started on January 30, 2013, following a delay due to tax law changes made by Congress on January 1 under the American Taxpayer Relief Act (ATRA). The comprehensive set of ATRA tax changes affected many 2012 tax returns, which led to the late January opening.