Re:IRS electronic filing system breaks down hours before mid...
by dragonwriter on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @04:21PM
(#16861955)
> Why does the IRS not distribute the tax-filing workload across the whole year?
Because IRS doesn't write the law, that’s Congress's job, and the tax filing deadlines (and the other deadlines that are coordinated relative to them, like the deadline for filing and supplying to taxpayers W-2s, 1099s, etc.) are set in law.
As to why Congress doesn't do it, well, the fact that their are coordinated deadlines for multiple linked processes that different parties have to comply with would produce chaos if 1/12 of taxpayers had a tax deadline each month, and all the linked forms for those taxpayers, and the applicable tax years, had similarly staggered dates. OTOH, if you just gave some taxpayers longer after the availability of forms and end of the (single, consistent) tax year to file, there would be substantial fairness issues.
Because IRS doesn't write the law, that’s Congress's job, and the tax filing deadlines (and the other deadlines that are coordinated relative to them, like the deadline for filing and supplying to taxpayers W-2s, 1099s, etc.) are set in law.
As to why Congress doesn't do it, well, the fact that their are coordinated deadlines for multiple linked processes that different parties have to comply with would produce chaos if 1/12 of taxpayers had a tax deadline each month, and all the linked forms for those taxpayers, and the applicable tax years, had similarly staggered dates. OTOH, if you just gave some taxpayers longer after the availability of forms and end of the (single, consistent) tax year to file, there would be substantial fairness issues.