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Acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller has said that the uncertainty as to what the tax law will be creates a risk for the entire tax system, including a strain on IRS, tax practitioners, and ultimately, taxpayers. In December of 2012, he said that in programming its systems, IRS has assumed that Congress will patch the AMT as it has for so many years in the past. But, if Congress fails to resolve fiscal cliff issues prior to the end of the year and IRS's assumptions are incorrect, the filing season will be delayed for many taxpayers.

IRS will have to implement a massive reprogramming of its systems. In that event, given the magnitude and complexity of the changes needed, most taxpayers may not be able to file their 2012 tax returns until late in March of 2013, or even later. This would create two problems?lengthy delays of tax refunds and unexpectedly higher taxes for taxpayers who will be surprised that they are subject to the AMT.