Filing season delayed for certain taxpayers Published Jan. 14, 2008 By Cannon Air Force Base Tax Office CANNON AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. -- The Internal Revenue Service announced that the upcoming tax season is expected to start on time for everyone except certain taxpayers potentially affected by late enactment of the Alternative Minimum Tax AMT "patch" passed in late December by Congress. The February delay caused by the AMT patch will affect taxpayers using any of these five forms: · Form 8863, Education Credits (tuition expenses paid). · Form 5695, Residential Energy Credits. · Form 1040A's Schedule 2, Child and Dependent Care Expenses. · Form 8396, Mortgage Interest Credit. · Form 8859, District of Columbia First-Time Home buyer Credit. The IRS has targeted February 11 as the potential starting date for taxpayers to begin submitting the five AMT-related returns affected by the legislation. The February date allows the IRS enough time to update and test its systems to accommodate the AMT changes without major disruptions to other operations related to the tax season. As the IRS has said previously, it will take approximately seven weeks after the AMT patch was approved to update IRS processing systems completely. Electronic returns involving those five forms will not be accepted until systems are updated in February; similarly, paper filers should wait to file as well. All other e-file and paper returns will be accepted starting in January. The IRS urges affected taxpayers to file electronically in order to reduce wait times for their refunds. E-file with direct deposit gets refunds in as little as 10 days, while paper returns take four to six weeks.