The Daily Money: Tax season opens tomorrow!

Good morning! It's Daniel de Visé with your Daily Money, Sunday Tax Edition.

On Sundays between now and April 15, we'll walk you through what's new and newsworthy in Tax Season 2024.

When can I file my taxes?

Let's start at the beginning:

When is the earliest you can file your taxes? The answer: Jan. 29. Monday. Tomorrow.

You may not be ready to file your taxes yet. You may not even have all the necessary paperwork. If you work a regular job, your employer has until the end of the month to deliver your W-2 form, the one that states your yearly earnings.

If you are ready to file, there may not be a good reason to wait.

Why should I file my taxes early?

The biggest reason to file early is to get your refund. Three in four taxpayers are likely to get a refund, Medora Lee reports.

“For most Americans, it’s the single largest payday of the year,” said Mark Steber, chief tax officer at tax preparer Jackson Hewitt. 

A few other reasons to file early:

• Locking down your information. Once you file and the IRS has your return, no one can steal your information and try to file a return on your behalf to claim your refund. (Yes, that apparently happens.) 
• More time to file an accurate return. If you or your tax preparer finds a mistake, you have more time to correct it.  
• Time to come up with any money you owe. If you owe taxes, it’s better to find out sooner than later, so you can come up with the money. Even if you file your taxes this week, you have until the April deadline to pay. 

When do I get my refund?

If you manage to file your taxes electronically on Monday, and the IRS finds nothing amiss, the agency can generally issue a refund within 21 days. The refund may come a bit later to taxpayers who claim the Earned Income Tax Credit or the Additional Child Tax Credit: those returns can take longer to process.

More: The best tax software of January 2024

What if I file by mail?

If you file by paper and are due a refund, you'll have to wait longer for your check.

Processing paper returns takes more time. The postal service has to deliver your return to the IRS, where a worker will have to physically open your mail and enter the information you submitted. All told, you can expect a wait of four weeks or more, the agency reports.

Can I check the status of my refund?

Yes! Go to  Where's My Refund? on IRS.gov or the IRS2Go mobile app for updates on your tax return and refund.

The IRS generally begins posting updates 24 hours after you file electronically, and four weeks after you file a paper return.

If you're the compulsive type, please know that updates come but once a day, usually at night. There's no need to check more often than that.

How many tax returns are we talking about?

The IRS expects more than 128.7 million individual tax returns to be filed by the April 15 deadline.

About The Daily Money

This was a special Sunday Tax Edition of The Daily Money. Each weekday, The Daily Money delivers the best consumer news from Paste BN. We break down financial news and provide the TLDR version: how decisions by the Federal Reserve, government and companies impact you.

Daniel de Visé covers personal finance for USA Today.