As of June 5, the IRS is sitting on a backlog of 18.2 million individual tax returns.
Many require manual processing, which basically means that a human needs to review it.
Along with the usual tax season mayhem, the IRS was tasked with delivering thethird stimulus check.
Plus, tax season started 16 days later than usual this year.
These challenges prompted the IRS toextend the tax deadlineto May 17.
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Or if youhad a child in 2020, youd get stimulus credits on their behalf.
These situations also require a manual review.
But your tax refund could also be delayed for all the reasons that would apply in a normal year.
Your refund will also be delayed if you made an error or your return was incomplete.
IRS fraud filters flagged about 5.2 million returns for 2020, according to the Taxpayer Advocate Service.
Thats almost a 50% increase from 2019.
Most returns flagged for fraud dont turn out to be fraudulent.
But about 25% of returns flagged for income verification took 56 days or more to process in 2020.
About 18% of those flagged for identity verification took longer than 120 days.
If you made an error that requires an amended return, your tax season will be even more prolonged.
The IRS will notify you of the error by mail, and youll have to send in Form 1040X.
Theres only one way to do this: by mail.
Then, your amended return will be added to the 18.2 million unprocessed returns.
you could track your return using theWheres My Refundfeature on the IRS website or theIRS2Go app.
Youll need to provide your Social Security number, filing status and your exact refund amount.
But these tools have limited usefulness.
If the IRS has accepted your return, that just means it has confirmed it received it.
The IRS still has to process it.
Even in normal circumstances, tracking a paper return can take about four weeks.
But only about 1 in 4 taxpayers who called the IRS in 2020 actually had their phone call answered.
The IRS systems dont tell employees who handle phone calls why a return required manual processing.
But if you want to try, the number for checking the status of a refund is 800-829-1954.
Robin Hartill is a certified financial planner and a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder.
She writes the Dear Penny personal finance advice column.
Send your tricky money questions to[email protected].
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