IRS will start accepting tax returns on January 24. Here's how to avoid a refund delay.

Three-quarters of all Americans get an annual tax refund from the IRS, which often is a family's biggest check of the year. But this tax season could see a repeat of last year's snarls in processing, when about 30 million taxpayers had their returns — and refunds — held up by the IRS. 

Treasury Department officials warned on Monday that this year's tax season will be a challenge once the IRS starts processing returns on January 24. That's largely due to the IRS' sizable backlog of returns from 2021. As of December 23, the agency had 6 million unprocessed individual returns — a significant reduction from a backlog of 30 million in May, but far higher than the 1 million unprocessed returns that is more typical around the start of tax season. 

"The first thing you know if you are going to cook a meal, you have to have the kitchen cleaned up from the last meal," said Mark W. Everson, vice chairman at Alliantgroup and former Commissioner of Internal Revenue at the IRS. "It just snowballs into a terrible situation."