For now, the best way to find the status of your return and associated refund is to use the IRS’ online Where’s My Refund? tracking tool. Every tax season is challenging, but this one is worse because Congress has fiddled yet again with tax laws, and the IRS has had to respond with (often confusing) new guidance for preparers. Most of this issue can blamed on COVID – even more because the IRS has suffered closures and skeleton staff due to illness, plus technology delays trying to keep abreast of all the legislative changes. Add to that the fact that the IRS is now holding more than 29 million returns for manual processing!
Where’s My Refund? tracking tool is still your best bet! Here is the link for the mobile app: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs2goapp
The National Taxpayer Advocate’s office says that 8 million returns are being personally reviewed by the IRS’ Error Resolution System unit due to Recovery Rebate Credit (RRC) claims. This tax credit is how individuals who didn’t receive the full amount of COVID economic impact payments last year can get the money now. Paper forms clog up the system every year as do those returns claiming the EITC and CTC. Add to those another 5 million being reviewed due to suspected fraud and you have a recipe for disaster.
We understand that if you have filed and are due a refund – especially a substantial one you are counting on in these tough pandemic times – your frustration level is growing. The usual ways to track refunds are only adding to your annoyance. Those who have called the IRS are discovering that the usual difficulty in getting through is even worse this year.
As of April 15th, we have been told IRS employees answered only about 2% of the roughly 70 million taxpayer calls to the agency’s 1040 telephone line. Some have turned to the NTA office for help about their delayed refunds, but Taxpayer Advocates must follow specific rules on situations when they can, and can’t, help, and delayed refunds one of them.
The good news is, the IRS has adjusted its systems so that taxpayers who initially didn’t get as much EIP as they qualify for based on their 2020 income won’t have do anything further to get the balance due. If they got a payment before filing their 2020 return, once the IRS processes that filing, should they be due more EIP, the IRS will send them the catch-up amount automatically.
Don’t believe these tax refund myths:
- Phoning my Fuoco CPA or the IRS will get me my refund sooner! Once your Form 1040 is in the agency’s system, it has to work its way through, the same applies to waiting for refunds.
- CPAs have the inside scoop on access to the IRS! Nope, not even close. We have to wait on the phone line for 20 minutes just like you do and there is no guarantee we get put through. There is no “special” number that CPAs get to call and no inside track.
- The Taxpayer Advocate Service can help me get my refund sooner! TAS can do a lot of things to help taxpayers who have issues with the IRS. It only gets involved in certain taxpayer/IRS situations, and a regular slow refund is not one of them.
- Ordering a tax transcript is a “secret way” to get a refund sooner! Tax transcripts are used to validate past income and tax filing status when you’re seeking a mortgage or small business loan. You also might need a transcript’s prior year tax data to help with your current tax return preparation or to file an amended return. But a transcript will not tell you when your pending refund will be issued and won’t jump start the refund’s issuance.
You can use Where’s My Refund? within 24 hours after the IRS gets your e-filed return. The status tracker displays your refund progress through three stages:
- Return Received,
- Refund Approved and
- Refund Sent.
To get refund news, you’ll need three pieces of info to get the tracking process started:
- Your Social Security number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). If you’re married and filed a joint return, either spouse’s Social Security number can be entered.
- Your filing status.
- Your exact refund amount as show on your 1040.
This will let you find the status of the individual tax return you filed for a refund earlier this year. It will not, however, give you the status of an amended tax return and any associated refund from that re-filing. IRS updates Where’s My Refund? information daily, usually overnight. So you only need to check it once a day.
Still have questions? Email us at CPA@Fuoco.com or call 855-542-7537.
