The IRS will start accepting 2019 tax returns on January 15, 2020
A start date of the 2020 tax season has not been formally announced yet and due to the late tax law changes made a week ago this is sure to delay things again like they have the last couple of years. The anticipated date is 1/27 however that is only an educated guess. And anyone with the EIC or ACTC will not process prior to 2/15 so patience will be needed as always ...
Although TurboTax will allow you to e-filed some returns as early as 1/2 they are NOT sent to the IRS. TurboTax stores those early filed returns until the IRS opens for business and pulls the returns for processing ... only then will you get an e-mail telling you if the return was accepted or rejected by the IRS.
Only the simplest returns can be transmitted to TurboTax early. Some forms will not be finalized until Jan 25 and some later than that.
https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1908854-forms-availability-table-for-turbotax-federal-products-exc...
Why does TurboTax allow early filing? Because their competitors do - It is a marketing ploy to capture market share.
Filing early with TurboTax before the IRS opens is a really BAD IDEA for many reasons...
1) If you discover something that is wrong on your return, receive a W-2 that is different, receive some other tax document that was not on the return that you filed then there is NOTHING that you can do about it other than wait to see if the IRS accepts or rejects the return after they open. If rejected you can correct and file again, but if accepted then the only remedy is to amend which can take 4 months to process.
2) You must remember to check back after the IRS opens (or check for an e-mail) to confirm that the IRS has accepted or rejected the return. If rejected, then it was never filed at all and must be corrected and re-filed. Every year many taxpayers that file early, forget to check back and only discover months later that they never actually filed because if was rejected by the IRS but they had forgotten about checking back after filing with TurboTax.
3) While the IRS does conduct some pre-opening tests and does accept some returns early (ONLY for TESTING purposes), they will not actually process those until after the official opening date. There is a reason to test and that is to discover any problems with it's systems. A couple of years ago a test went bad and several thousand "test" returns were lost. The IRS was able to recover those but it delayed refunds for some by months.
There is no real advantage to file before the IRS opens but there are several disadvantages to do so.
@DoninGA Where did you see that date exactly ? I cannot confirm that date anywhere. Is that maybe the date the FREE FILE option goes live but not the actual efiling system opening ?
Lounge post from one of the TurboTax Moderators -
January 15th - IRS open for Efile
The Internal Revenue Service confirmed that the nation's tax season will start for individual tax return filers on Monday, January 27, 2020, when the tax agency will begin accepting and processing 2019 tax year returns.