Tax filing season has started, why you should consider filing early

OCEAN CITY, Md. –  Filing season has officially kicked off, and a local CPA tells 47ABC, you may be better off to file sooner rather than later this year.

Phillip Cheung, a CPA with CG Accounting Group, LLC said, “By filing early you can beat the entities that are filing fraudulent returns by filing a return first.”

Filing early has it’s benefits. The main one, as Phillip Cheung mentioned, is because filing early can protect your identity and therefor, your wallet.

Cheung said, “Once a tax return has been entered and processed through the IRS electronic system with your social security number, that is the only return that will be accepted, so typically the first return with your identification number is the one that’s accepted by the IRS.”

Next, filing early means your tax return will likely come sooner.

Cheung said, “The sheer volume of tax returns being processed is not very many, so the processing the returns are faster, resulting in faster refunds being issued.”

There’s another reason you should file early this year: the government may shutdown once again in just a few weeks, meaning IRS workers would once again go  without pay, which could mean a delay in your tax returns.

Cheung said, “The delayed processing of tax returns for a majority of tax payers with the earned income tax credit and children the delay of the processing of those returns with those credits.”

For those of you who don’t want to take advantage of the early filing, you have until April 15th to get it done.