Taxpayers may face a significantly delayed filing season and a
much larger tax bill for 2012 if Congress fails to timely resolve fiscal cliff
issues, Acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller said on December 6.
Speaking at the 25th Annual Institute on Current Issues in
International Tax sponsored by IRS and the George Washington University School
of Law in Washington, Miller said that “I remain optimistic that the fiscal
cliff will be resolved by the end of this calendar fiscal year [but] if that
turns out not to be true, then what is clear is that many of us will see a
delayed filing season.”
Miller said that the uncertainty as to what the tax law will be
in 2012 creates a risk for the entire tax system, including a strain on IRS,
tax practitioners, and ultimately, taxpayers.
“There is currently a real discussion about the tax rates for
the next year and beyond as well as the national debt and that is an incredibly
important discussion,” he said. “But taxpayers and the IRS need to know what
the tax provisions are for 2012 so you know what you owe and so we know how to
process the return beginning in January.”
He noted that the alternative minimum tax (AMT) and other
extender provisions had expired at the end of 2011, but that these had been
overshadowed by other higher profile fiscal cliff issues. Miller said that in
programming its systems, IRS has assumed that Congress will patch the AMT as it
has for so many years in the past. However, he warned that if Congress fails to
resolve fiscal cliff issues prior to the end of the year and the IRS's
assumptions are incorrect, the filing season will be delayed for many
taxpayers.
