The Internal Revenue Service has announced a delay of approximately
one to two weeks to the start of the 2014 filing season due to the 16-day
federal government shutdown.
The government closure came during the peak period for
preparing IRS systems for the 2014 filing season. Updating these core systems
is a complex, year-round process with the majority of the work beginning in the
fall of each year.
There are additional training, programming, and testing
demands on the IRS this year as the agency works to prevent refund fraud and
identity theft.
The IRS is exploring options to shorten the delay and will
announce a final decision on the start of the 2014 filing season in December.
