Tax deadline is coming too soon for many Americans

Still need to file your taxes? Get in line. America’s running late this season.

Order Reprints

An H&R Block employee checked some of a customer's figures last year.

More News

    Sewer gas may have killed KC woman

    50 years later, Gideon case still echoes

    Future looks brighter for rescued teen

    Tax deadline is coming too soon for many Americans

    Arkansas adopts US's most restrictive abortion law

Read more Front Page

We’re two weeks behind the normal pace of tax filings, H&R Block Inc. said Thursday.

“There are still over 60 million taxpayers who have to file by April 15,” said Bill Cobb, chief executive of the Kansas City-based tax company. “We have a lot of work to do.”

Others agree the tax season is late. And that means more taxpayers than usual likely will end up filing for an extension of time to submit tax returns to the IRS.

“I don’t know that we’ll be able to be caught up by April 15,” said Barbara Plattner, a partner and tax department chair at Marks Nelson Vohland Campbell Radetic LLC, a Kansas City-based accounting firm.

Plattner said there is no sign that the Internal Revenue Service would move the filing deadline.

If you can’t file on time, the primary reminder from tax experts is that you will still have to pay taxes you owe at the time you seek the extension, or at least a close estimate of what you owe.

Blame Washington.

Its last-minute tax deal to avoid the fiscal cliff — that New Year’s Day expiration of billions of dollars in tax cuts and cancellation of billions in federal spending — threw off the IRS.

It couldn’t create all the 2012 tax season forms because the deal tax deal changed some of 2012’s tax issues.

Nor could it open its electronic tax filing systems to accept returns in mid-January as it normally does. The IRS e-file system didn’t open until Jan. 30.

And the IRS wasn’t accepting all types of returns until Monday.

For example, its latest updates allowed filers who were claiming residential energy credits and various business tax credits and deductions to file their returns

Plattner said IRS delays also mean that brokerage firms are just now sending out the 1099 forms that tell investors what they have to declare on tax forms.

The IRS also is taking more precautions to guard against identity theft this year, said Julie Welch, a certified public accountant with Meara Welch Browne PC in Leawood. And that could delay the processing of refunds.

Her advice to individual filers: “The faster you file, the faster you’ll get your refund.”

Filers, wherever they turn for help, may face longer waits to see a professional as so much of the nation tries to get the job done in the five and a half weeks remaining until tax day.

A Block spokesman said the company had plans since before the tax season to deal with the late start.

Block, the nation’s largest tax preparation firm, and Intuit Inc., the maker of TurboTax, say their business shows just how far behind taxpayers are.

H&R Block said Thursday that the number of tax returns it prepared through the end of February was down 5.8 percent when compared with last year’s tax season. It expects to catch up and still grow its total number of returns filed by April 15.

Intuit said last month that its sales of TurboTax services online were down 6 percent through Feb. 16 this tax season.

Business has been picking up as the IRS got forms flowing and its e-file system opened.

Intuit said its online business since Jan. 30 jumped 32 percent, catching up from the slow start. Similarly, H&R Block’s online tax business was up 44 percent in the same time, the company said Thursday.

The IRS also hasn’t offered its usual early reports on how the tax season is progressing. Normally, such reports trickle out during the crush to file, but nothing so far.

H&R Block estimates that federal tax filings nationwide were down by about 8 percent through the end of February, citing its industry knowledge and sources.

Cobb’s point was that all those unfiled taxes still have to hit the midnight cutoff April 15 — one way or another.

H&R Block, however, won’t update its read on this year’s tax season until it’s all over.

E files your Rhode Island Taxes 2013 & Get South Carolina Taxes 2013