IRS Warning: Congressional Inaction Risks 2013 Tax ‘Disaster’

During the most recent Bush administration, individual income tax cuts passed which are now expected to expire at the end of this year. This year is an election year which means that politicians are waiting until after the election to decide whether or not the tax cuts will be extended.

According to Accounting Today, most democrats, along with President Obama, want to extend the tax cuts to all income levels except the top two brackets for high income earners. Republicans, however, want to extend the tax cuts to all income levels.

The potential problem at hand is whether or not there will be sufficient time to make the decision regarding the tax cuts without causing mass confusion to taxpayers. Not just confusion, but delays worse than we’ve seen in the past which will affect every single taxpayer, not just those who file a certain type of form (for example, in 2010 taxpayers who itemized had to wait until mid February to file).

Not only would this create delays for the possibility of filing, this could create a backlog of returns that could postpone acceptances and refunds as well.