KEY POINTS:

• The IRS is pushing back the beginning of the 2020 tax season to Feb. 12.
• Normally, the filing period begins in late January, allowing early birds to submit their returns and get their refunds.

Having your return flagged by the IRS can result in significant delays.

Last year, IRS fraud filters caught 5.2 million returns that were claiming refunds, according to a recent report from the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an IRS watchdog. For about a quarter of those returns flagged for income verification, refunds took longer than 56 days.

About 2 in 10 of the returns flagged for identity verification had delays of more than 120 days.

Normally, the turnaround time for a refund is about 21 days if a tax return has no problems...