You may or may not be aware that due to late legislation, the date to begin filing your 2012 tax returns has been delayed. For most people and businesses, the first day to begin filing is January 30. This includes both paper and e-filed returns.
There are a few folks, though, who will not be able to file until later – in some cases late February or early March.
The biggest problem is if you are a business owner, own rental property, or have a farm and file form 4562 for depreciation, you will have to wait.
Note that you don’t need to file 4562 unless you: a) added assets in 2012, want to take section 179, or have “listed” property (cars, etc). In these cases you must use form 4562, and therefore will have to wait. If you are only taking depreciation on prior year assets, you should be ok to go.
Then there are the obscure forms for energy efficiency credits, other general business credits, form 5074, 8900 and 8923. And no, I don’t know what these are for either. They won’t affect many people.
Also note that you can still prepare your return, you just can’t file it.
For those of you stuck in depreciation limbo, I’ll keep you updated.