MACON, Ga. — Tax season officially starts Monday, January 23. In order to file your taxes and get your refund, you need to make sure you have all the correct documents. The most important one is your W2 form.
The W-2 is an official IRS tax form to "report wages paid to employees and the taxes withheld from them." Each job you held in a tax year, should provide you with a W-2 form. For example, if you had three jobs in 2022, you should receive three W-2 forms. Your employer should provide you with those forms before January 31, 2023.
According to the IRS, they've hired 4,000 customer service representatives to prepare for the new tax season. If you want to get started on filing now, you can. You can go online or print out the appropriate tax forms. Jasmine Smith from Macon shares tips so you don't fall behind in filing.
"When filing your taxes make sure you go to a tax preparer that you trust, don't wait until the last minute because the IRS can penalize you, and you want to make sure that you do your taxes each year so that way you're caught up with the IRS and also you can receive your refund that is due to you," Smith said.
What's new this year is how much you could receive but it will be lower depending on how you file.
The child tax credit, earned income tax credit, and child and dependent care credit will be smaller.
"$3,600 per dependent in 2021 and $2,000 for the 2022 tax year. Just like a person with no child that received roughly $1,500 in 2021 will now get $500 in 2022. Pretty much showing the amounts are lower," said Macy Campbell, owner of By the Books Tax Service on Mercer University Drive.
If you are not pleased with your refund amount, some tax preparation companies are offering incentives for filing early. For example, Jackson Hewitt is doing their "Double Your Refund" sweepstakes. When you file, you are entered to possibly win up to $15,000.