GREENSBORO, N.C. — “I filed my paper return in march. Calls and emails to the IRS are ignored. Is there any help?” Viewer Carroll asked 2WTK this question today.
Less than 24 hours ago, my mom asked me about her refund.
“Where is my federal refund? I e-filed months ago and already got my state refund!”
I'm not going to play favorites, what I told my mom is the same thing I told Carroll and I'm telling you too.
Calling and emailing the IRS is not fruitful, but what could be is creating an online account with the IRS. The agency has a cheat sheet for setting up an online account to access tax information. It takes you through the steps to create that account and once you have it you can check everything from your economic impact statement amounts to key information from their most recent tax return and digital copies of notices or letters from the IRS.
“I understand that the pandemic has put all organizations under a crunch and that is fine but what I would really like to know is just some better communication to say we have looked at it and because of whatever reason this is why it is delayed and then we can then have an expectation of three more weeks or a month, just something so we would have the ability to number one understand what the delay is and number two an expectation of when that might be resolved,” said Bill Hartman who is waiting on his tax refund.
Another resource that may be able to help is the Taxpayer Advocate Service. While the agency is affiliated with the IRS, they are not the IRS. They can help once your return is processed.
The Taxpayer Advocate Service may be able to help with delayed refunds if your case meets their criteria.
Here's a quick look at their case acceptance criteria:
Economic Burden -- if you're experiencing or about to suffer economic harm due to the delay
Systemic Burdens -- include a delay of more than 30 days to resolve a tax account problem
The Best Interest of the Taxpayer – are the tax laws being administered with equity or is it impairing taxpayer rights
Public Policy – compelling public policy warrants assistance to an individual or group of taxpayers