Where's My Refund? IRS Still Processing Backlogged Returns.
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Here's your money briefing for Thursday, July 16th. I'm J.R. Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. Now that the July 15th tax filing deadline has passed, the question on a lot of people's minds is, where's my refund?
Why are millions of tax refunds still delayed after the July deadline?
It usually takes the IRS a few weeks to send refunds out to people, but this year, many taxpayers have been waiting for months with no word from the IRS.
Whether you e-filed or sent in paper and you haven't heard, don't re-send yet.
That's our tax reporter Laura Saunders. She's got some tips for keeping tabs on your tax return and your refund. That's after the break.
Millions of taxpayers have received their tax refunds already, but many others are still waiting, even those who filed earlier in the year. So, Laura, how long does it usually take between a taxpayer filing a return and receiving a refund?
Well, that varies for all kinds of reasons, but usually it can be two or three weeks. Now, this year is a whole different thing for millions of taxpayers because the coronavirus pandemic really hit the IRS hard. You know, they had to close offices and then people sent in tax returns and they kind of had to pile them up in locked trailers and things like that if they were paper tax returns. So this year, it's anybody's guess. I think they're doing pretty well with returns submitted recently, but particularly those paper returns that piled up, they're still having to clear out that backlog.
Yeah, we've heard about a paperwork backlog at the IRS. How behind are they in processing tax returns?
Well, I think they're doing reasonably well considering what they were dealing with. In mid-June, they had about 12 million pieces of correspondence. A lot of those were tax returns. And as of July 4th, they had about 7 million pieces of correspondence. And this is the key thing, about 3.6 million paper tax returns to do. Somebody said maybe they're doing a million a week. I think maybe it's less. I think they're really hoping to get the backlog cleared out by the end of the summer.
Well, I guess people are looking around the house at the mail piling up. They have no idea how bad it could be.
Yeah.
That's exactly right. It was frantic. And, you know, a lot of those returns had checks in them and they haven't been cashed and things like that. There's a lot to say about this.
And there are still that many people sending in paper returns.
Oh yes, lots of people, you know, you're allowed to do it. And lots of people do. I think it's about 10% of taxpayers, that would be about 15 million returns come in on paper. And in a few cases, not many, there are certain kinds of forms that don't exist online. But by and large, I think about 90% of taxpayers e-file. But 10% of 155 million is still a lot.
Now, let's say somebody filed their tax return earlier in the year, maybe around the traditional filing deadline in April. If they still haven't gotten their refund, what should they do?
most important thing is that the irs is asking people not to refile and not to resend checks if they haven't heard anything they hope that they're going to clear out the backlog now this makes it very important if you've been sending paper to the irs you need to get your proof of mailing you need to keep it in a careful place the irs takes that seriously the courts take that seriously but the overall message is whether you e-filed or sent in paper and you haven't heard, don't resend yet. Going forward, if you send in paper, again, don't do anything, but the IRS is trying to clear out this backlog. And so with luck, you'll hear by the end of the summer, and you might get, well, you will get interest on a late refund starting April 15th.
But the other point is that if you e-filed a return back in March or April, and you were due a refund and you haven't gotten it. That's more of a cause for concern. It may be that the IRS thinks that somebody stole your tax ID and applied for a refund in your name. Apparently the unit that deals with this is kind of bogged down or closed up right now because of the virus.
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