An increasing backlog of delayed tax returns has now reached up to 35 million, creating a drastic delay in refunding billions of taxpayers. It’s already August and the year is near its end and millions of Americans are still waiting for the good news.
If you are also waiting for your refund to arrive in your bank account like millions of other Americans, be informed that the agency is working hard to go through all the tax returns filings to process the tax returns, which the pandemic has greatly piled up. The IRS has also remained occupied in sending unemployment refunds, tax benefits, refund adjustments of 2020, Child Tax credit payments, and stimulus checks.
Certainly, you have been waiting for your CTC as well which is scheduled to be received on the 15th of every month. This is also a part of America’s Rescue plan which will help households to pay out their bills and do day-to-day expenses. Of course, the stimulus check payments and the second child tax credit payments have been a great help in these pandemic days, but a tax refund will be a significant assistance.
IRS tax refund policies keep changing and you never know what could be the next amendment the IRS would bring in its rules. Therefore, tracking your IRS tax refunds is effective in receiving your funds as early as possible. If you are still wondering why the funds are delayed, check out the next part of the article.
Why are IRS tax refunds still unprocessed?
Along with many other reasons, the 2020 pandemic held IRS’s limited ability to deliver tax returns which brought a massive backlog. According to the National Taxpayer Advocate Review 2021, the combination of three stimulus payments, shutdowns, paper-filed returns, and laws related to imposing new tax returns and amending previously implemented laws became the reason for the backlog.
Fortunately, families are receiving stimulus checks and CTC for 2021 in their bank accounts in return for their taxes. This means that the IRS is now back in action to processing tax refunds, payments, emails, and doing correspondence but of course, limited resources can bring interruptions.
The IRS said that the reason for delaying is also reviewing the tax returns for 2020 to determine recovery rebate credit payments for the stimulus checks’ first and second payments and the additional child tax credit amounts with earned income tax credit.
Let’s keep the IRS compulsions apart and find out what could make delays in your IRS refunds:
- You may have miscalculated your tax returns
- Your tax returns are incomplete
- Your refunds are held due to identity theft or the suspect of fraud
- You have filed your income tax credit wrong or attached additional CTC
- Your tax returns are complicated and need further information
- Your tax returns include injured spouse allocation with Form 8379, which normally takes up to 14 weeks to process.
If the IRS needs to make necessary corrections for a recovery rebate, additional child tax credit amounts, or for earned income tax, IRS will first inform you with the explanation. If the IRS finds a problem in your tax returns that needs to be considered, the IRS will try to move further without communicating with you otherwise it will write to you to provide necessary information or confirm the changes.
Is the IRS following any timelines for tax refunds?
Generally, taxpayers receive their tax refunds in a minimum of three weeks but some taxpayers have to wait for months to receive their refunds. If your tax returns have errors, or the tax returns are filed for earned income tax or child tax credits, then correcting them and filing them again for processing can take even longer.
If any of these relates to your tax returns delay, the resolution will be directly based on how effectively you respond to the queries and the ability of IRS correspondence and prompt actions complying with the social distancing requirements and processing your request.
The time or date when you get your refunds is also directly proportional to how you have filed your returns. For instance, when your tax refunds are deposited into your bank account, your bank takes 5 to 6 business days to post the refund onto your account. It means a total of 21 days by the IRS and 5 days by your bank. You can expect to receive your IRS tax refunds in 26 days. On the other hand, if you have filed your tax via mail, the IRS says it will take even 6-8 weeks for your refunds to arrive.
