HARLINGEN, Texas (ValleyCentral) — The Internal Revenue Service officially kicked off the start of tax season this week. The IRS is expecting more than 160 million tax returns to be filed nationwide.
Here in the valley, Liberty Tax in Harlingen has already seen many customers needing help filing their taxes this year. General Manager David A. Perez told ValleyCentral coming in to file your taxes may take a little longer since the IRS is still experiencing a backlog.
“We anticipate a lot of people setting up appointments and getting prepared to file,” Perez said. “They should be patient on forms, and they must be patient with the tax preparation process in the challenging times that we are experiencing right now with the pandemic.”
The biggest tip in filing your taxes this year is to make sure you are not missing any important documents. Not having documents that are required will lead to delays when getting your refund check.
“So it is very important that we are accurate right now, that means that if there is documents that you may be pending you need to wait for those documents. This isn’t something that you can just say ‘let’s file this later, we’ll get to this later,'” Perez said. “If the IRS finds that there is missing information or a missing documentation, who knows how long you return can be held up.”
But there are also many questions on how the 2021 Child Tax Credit can impact someone’s refund this year. Perez said the amount of money you could be getting is on a case-by-case basis.
“What is important to understand is if you took the advanced child tax credit over the course of the year, when we file your tax return it’s going to get reconciled. It might not even impact your refund compared to prior years,” Perez said. “But if you didn’t take it, it’s going to impact tax return because you will get a bigger refund.”
The deadline to file your taxes this year is April 18.
