(Washington, DC) – The District of Columbia Office of Tax and Revenue (OTR) announced today that it is following the lead of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and will begin to process tax year 2019 individual income tax returns, filed electronically or by paper submission, on January 27.

“We are looking forward to a successful filing season,” said Deputy Chief Financial Officer for the Office of Tax and Revenue Keith J. Richardson. “We strongly encourage tax preparers and taxpayers to file their returns electronically. E-filing is faster, safer and results in few errors.”

To enhance efforts to safeguard District tax dollars and combat identity theft, OTR is retiring the identity confirmation process via Lexis Nexis and is moving to an online Fraud Detection Service. This new process will require taxpayers selected for identity verification to complete the verification quiz via the online portal, MyTax.DC.gov. These measures may result in longer processing times for some tax returns and associated refunds. The processing window for selected tax returns could be up to six weeks.

To learn more about the tax changes that will take effect this filing season, visit: https://otr.cfo.dc.gov/release/learn-about-tax-year-2020-filing-season-changes.

For additional information or tax assistance, visit MyTax.DC.gov or call 202-727-4829.