with the sony attacks that took place, with the twitter account that was hacked by islamist jihadist sympathizers yesterday, it just goes to show how much more work we need to do. today the president will be focusing on new steps to increase access to high-speed broadband during his visit to iowa. can you believe it is the official start of tax season. it s just days away. the irs has an alert for taxpayers. abc news learned refund checks will take longer than usual to arrive and that s not the only bad news. abc s jonathan karl has the details. reporter: coming soon from the irs, delayed tax refunds, more risk of identity theft and worse customer service. that s the word from irs commissioner john koskinen. in an e-mail to irs employees obtained by abc news, the commissioner says the irs budget has been cut so severely we
have no choice but to do less with less. refund checks will be slowed by a week or more and that irs help line only about half of the people who call will actually get through. about the only people to benefit, tax cheats. the irs will conduct 46,000 fewer audits. spending less on the irs budget will cost the government money because there will be fewer audits, fewer officers going after tax cheats and as a result $2 billion less in revenue coming into the treasury. jonathan karl, abc news, the white house. folks in eastern connecticut are wondering when the next earthquake will be felt. residents in the town of plainfield are pointing out cracks in the streets and inside of their homes after six small earthquakes in the last two days, the largest 3.3 on monday morning. a new hampshire time-honored tradition is playing out this week. it is harvest time for ice. for more than a century blocks
have no choice but to do less with less. refund checks will be slowed by a week or more and that irs help line only about half of the people who call will actually get through. about the only people to benefit, tax cheats. the irs will conduct 46,000 fewer audits. spending less on the irs budget will cost the government money because there will be fewer audits, fewer officers going after tax cheats and as a result $2 billion less in revenue coming into the treasury. jonathan karl, abc news, the white house. folks in eastern connecticut are wondering when the next earthquake will be felt. residents in the town of plainfield are pointing out cracks in the streets and inside of their homes after six small earthquakes in the last two days, the largest 3.3 on monday morning. a new hampshire time-honored tradition is playing out this week.
it s not trickling down to spending and cobbback in the economy. if you are under 40, 0 for 2, you don t own stocks or own a home or have equity in it. you broke that down. how about the many happy returns, tax refunds. 40% of people have gotten their taxes in already. people who are expecting a return file earlier. they have the electronic refund checks. on average, more than $3,000. up 3% over last year. will that play itself out in terms of spending into the economy? maybe not because when asked what are you going to do with that three grand, many people say i m going pay off loans or credit cards. the money is already spent. what s up with home cooking, more of it these days? yeah, more of it. it doesn t bode well for the restaurant industry expecting spending to be down 10% next year. 30% of people say they are not going to go out as much. the number one reason is not their wallets, it s their
refunds. 21% say they will pay off debt, a good idea. another 18% will spend money on necessities. according to a survey by td ameritrade, here s an interesting wrinkle, millennials, those most likely to save their refund checks. millennials. interesting, right? maybe because they re living in their parents basement with imported beer and they don t have they need money for the xbox. just teasing, millennials, just teasing. 20 minutes to the hour now. we have breaking news. valentine s day is in jeopardy. no joke here. here s the deal. it could be tough to get your hands on roses or flowers. wine? because of the weather. it s now heading north through new england. it hit at the exact worst time in the worst possible places. so, flowers going north from florida were delayed because travel was so difficult. packages packed with valentine s gifts were also slowed. and now the florists are scrambling.