Here’s what HIVE AI had to say about “What qualifies as the 2026 tax filing season versus future seasons?”:
What counts as the 2026 tax filing season (vs. future seasons)
For individual federal income taxes, the IRS uses “tax filing season” to mean the period when it starts accepting/processing returns for a given tax year and runs through the original due date for those returns (not including returns filed after the due date, such as extension filers). 2
Applied to the 2026 filing season, that generally means:
- Returns for tax year 2025 that the IRS accepted/processed starting January 26, 2026, through the regular federal due date of April 15, 2026. 1 3
“Future seasons” are the IRS filing seasons that open in later calendar years (for later tax years) with their own IRS start dates and original due dates (for example, the filing season that opens in January 2027 for tax year 2026 returns). (This last sentence is a general application of the IRS/TAS concept of “filing season,” not a quoted IRS definition.) 2
Sources
1 – IRS Newsroom – IR-2026-02
2 – 2021 Filing Season Bumps in the Road: Part III – TAS
3 – IRS opens 2026 filing season
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