WASHINGTON (AP) — Jan. 26 marks the official start date of the 2026 tax filing season, when the IRS will begin accepting and processing 2025 tax returns. April 15 is the filing deadline to avoid penalties and interest.
Tax season is the annual period when taxpayers prepare and submit their income tax returns for the previous calendar year to the IRS and most U.S. citizens and permanent residents need to file a tax return if they make more than a certain amount of money for the year.
Tax experts, including the IRS’ independent watchdog, have warned that this year's filing season could be hampered by the loss of tens of thousands of tax collection workers who left the agency through planned layoffs and buyouts spurred by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank Bisignano, who was named to the new role in October, said “the IRS workforce remains vigilant and dedicated to their mission to serve the American taxpaying public. At the same time, IRS information systems have been updated to incorporate the new tax laws and are ready to efficiently and effectively process taxpayer returns during the filing season.”
Bisignano is also commissioner of the Social Security Administration.
The IRS will also be responsible for implementing major provisions of Republicans' tax and spending package signed into law last summer. Several provisions in the law retroactively affect the 2025 tax year, likely leading to more questions from taxpayers and requiring the IRS to update tax forms.
“President Trump is committed to the taxpayers of this country and improving upon the successful tax filing season in 2025,” said acting IRS Commissioner Scott Bessent in a news release. “I am confident in our ability to deliver results and drive growth for businesses and consumers alike.”
The IRS expects to receive roughly 164 million individual income tax returns this year, which is on par with what it received last year.
The average refund amount was $3,167, according to IRS data. Bessent has said on several occasions that the effects of Republican tax law will result in bigger tax refunds in 2026.
The latest National Taxpayer Advocate report to Congress published in June states that the IRS workforce has fallen from 102,113 workers at the end of the Biden administration to 75,702. The IRS website does not include the latest employment numbers on the agency’s workforce.
IRS employees involved in last year's tax season were not allowed to accept a buyout offer from the Trump administration until after the taxpayer filing deadline of April 15, 2025.
The June National Taxpayer Advocate report to Congress warned that the 2026 season could be rocky.
“With the IRS workforce reduced by 26% and significant tax law changes on the horizon, there are risks to next year’s filing season,” said Erin M. Collins, who leads the organization assigned to protect taxpayers’ rights.
FILE - A sign is displayed outside the Internal Revenue Service building May 4, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
A quarterback reportedly reneging on a lucrative deal to hit the transfer portal, only to return to his original school. Another starting QB, this one in the College Football Playoff, awaiting approval from the NCAA to play next season, an expensive NIL deal apparently hanging in the balance. A defensive star, sued by his former school after transferring, filing a lawsuit of his own.
It is easy to see why many observers say things are a mess in college football even amid a highly compelling postseason.
“It gets crazier and crazier. It really, really does,” said Sam Ehrlich, a Boise State legal studies professor who tracks litigation against the NCAA. He said he might have to add a new section for litigation against the NCAA stemming just from transfer portal issues.
“I think a guy signing a contract and then immediately deciding he wants to go to another school, that’s a kind of a new thing,” he said. “Not new kind of historically when you think about all the contract jumping that was going on in the ’60s and ’70s with the NBA. But it’s a new thing for college sports, that’s for sure.”
Washington quarterback Demond Williams Jr. said late Thursday he will return to school for the 2026 season rather than enter the transfer portal, avoiding a potentially messy dispute amid reports the Huskers were prepared to pursue legal options to enforce Williams’ name, image and likeness contract.
Edge rusher Damon Wilson is looking to transfer after one season at Missouri, having been sued for damages by Georgia over his decision to leave the Bulldogs. He has countersued.
Then there is Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, who reportedly has a new NIL deal signed but is awaiting an NCAA waiver allowing him to play another season as he and the Rebels played Thursday night's Collge Football Playoff semifinal against Miami. On the Hurricanes roster: Defensive back Xavier Lucas, whose transfer from Wisconsin led to a lawsuit against the Hurricanes last year with the Badgers claiming he was improperly lured by NIL money. Lucas has played all season for Miami. The case is pending.
Court rulings have favored athletes of late, winning them not just millions in compensation but the ability to play immediately after transferring rather than have to sit out a year as once was the case. They can also discuss specific NIL compensation with schools and boosters before enrolling and current court battles include players seeking to play longer without lower-college seasons counting against their eligibility and ability to land NIL money while doing it.
Ehrlich compared the situation to the labor upheaval professional leagues went through before finally settling on collective bargaining, which has been looked at as a potential solution by some in college sports over the past year. Athletes.org, a players association for college athletes, recently offered a 38-page proposal of what a labor deal could look like.
“I think NCAA is concerned, and rightfully so, that anything they try to do to tamp down this on their end is going to get shut down,” Ehrlich said. “Which is why really the only two solutions at this point are an act of Congress, which feels like an act of God at this point, or potentially collective bargaining, which has its own major, major challenges and roadblocks.”
The NCAA has been lobbying for years for limited antitrust protection to keep some kind of control over the new landscape — and to avoid more crippling lawsuits — but bills have gone nowhere in Congress.
Collective bargaining is complicated and universities have long balked at the idea that their athletes are employees in some way. Schools would become responsible for paying wages, benefits, and workers’ compensation. And while private institutions fall under the National Labor Relations Board, public universities must follow labor laws that vary from state to state; virtually every state in the South has “right to work” laws that present challenges for unions.
Ehrlich noted the short careers for college athletes and wondered whether a union for collective bargaining is even possible.
To sports attorney Mit Winter, employment contracts may be the simplest solution.
“This isn’t something that’s novel to college sports,” said Winter, a former college basketball player who is now a sports attorney with Kennyhertz Perry. “Employment contracts are a huge part of college sports, it’s just novel for the athletes.”
Employment contracts for players could be written like those for coaches, he suggested, which would offer buyouts and prevent players from using the portal as a revolving door.
“The contracts that schools are entering into with athletes now, they can be enforced, but they cannot keep an athlete out of school because they’re not signing employment contracts where the school is getting the right to have the athlete play football for their school or basketball or whatever sport it is,” Winter said. “They’re just acquiring the right to be able to use the athlete’s NIL rights in various ways. So, a NIL agreement is not going to stop an athlete from transferring or going to play whatever sport it is that he or she plays at another school.”
There are challenges here, too, of course: Should all college athletes be treated as employees or just those in revenue-producing sports? Can all injured athletes seek workers' compensation and insurance protection? Could states start taxing athlete NIL earnings?
Winter noted a pending federal case against the NCAA could allow for athletes to be treated as employees more than they currently are.
“What’s going on in college athletics now is trying to create this new novel system where the athletes are basically treated like employees, look like employees, but we don’t want to call them employees,” Winter said. “We want to call them something else and say they’re not being paid for athletic services. They’re being paid for use of their NIL. So, then it creates new legal issues that have to be hashed out and addressed, which results in a bumpy and chaotic system when you’re trying to kind of create it from scratch.”
He said employment contracts would allow for uniform rules, including how many schools an athlete can go to or if the athlete can go to another school when the deal is up. That could also lead to the need for collective bargaining.
“If the goal is to keep someone at a school for a certain defined period of time, it’s got to be employment contracts,” Winter said.
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Mississippi quarterback Trinidad Chambliss (6) runs the ball during the second half of the Fiesta Bowl NCAA college football playoff semifinal game against Miami, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
