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The tax season for 2023 began on January 23 and will end on April 18. Certain taxpayers, however, who took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic’s postponed filing deadlines will have more time to claim tax refunds. The IRS will change the lookback period to allow certain taxpayers who would have otherwise been denied past-year claims to receive tax refunds. On March 13, new deadline information is expected to be released.

The IRS discussed discrepancies in filing dates for credit or refund claims and the three-year lookback period caused by postponing certain filing deadlines for filing seasons 2020 and 2021.

To be eligible for a tax refund, all tax payments must be made within three years, plus any time granted as an extension. Because of the pandemic, the IRS has pushed back filing deadlines to July 15, 2020, and May 17, 2021. The pandemic postponements did not address extending lookback periods, leading to taxpayers incorrectly assuming they have more time to file than allowed (Nadelle,2023).

Collins welcomed the upcoming lookback period amendment by the IRS to eliminate challenges and refund denials for disaster relief postponements. Without the IRS’s intervention, claims for credit or refund filed during the postponed period three years later would have been denied due to the withheld amount being credited to the taxpayer’s account as of April 15.