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IRS' massive backlog continues to delay millions of refunds for Americans

Nancy Sarnoff
Sun, September 12, 2021, 2:00 PM

IRS' massive backlog continues to delay millions of refunds for Americans

Millions of Americans are still waiting for their tax refunds to show up in their mailboxes or bank accounts months after rushing to meet the May 17 deadline.

And for some, the wait may go on for a long time to come. As of early September, the IRS was still processing 8.5 million individual returns.

In a typical year, the tax agency takes about three weeks to process returns and pay refunds. But this is hardly the typical year. Even an advocacy group created to help taxpayers has been paralyzed by the backlog.

How long you may have to wait

The IRS hasn't been able to keep up for a number of pandemic-related reasons: a workforce shortage, technology gaps and a backlog of unprocessed paper returns from 2019.

The agency says it has processed all error-free returns received before April, but it’s still working on the ones that need to be manually reviewed due to mistakes.

In some cases, the IRS says it may take up to 120 days to issue refunds because it is having to correct “significantly more errors on tax returns than in previous years.”

Many of those errors are related to the expanded child credit, missing information or suspected identity theft or fraud.

Returns are processed in the order they are received, says the IRS, which is trying to minimize delays by rerouting returns and taxpayer correspondence from facilities that are behind to ones where more staff is available.