How to confirm if IRS received a mailed in 13 tax return

[AZ-Tax]

How to confirm the IRS received a 2013 tax return that had to be mailed in besides:

Calling the IRS and be place on hold for hours.

Yes, it was mailed certified mail and the IRS signed for it.

[JohnH]

Does it show a refund?
If so, Call the automated line - 800.629.4477

Answer the questions and the system will give you the current status.
If it can't give you any status, then either not enough time has elapsed since filing or else they don't yet have it keyed into their system.

[Burke]

"Where's my refund" via on-line (IRS website) used to tell you if it had been received but not yet processed. Only valid if refund.

[AZ-Tax]

No REFUND

Does it show a refund?
If so, Call the automated line - 800.629.4477

Answer the questions and the system will give you the current status.
If it can't give you any status, then either not enough time has elapsed since filing or else they don't yet have it keyed into their system.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that . No refund

[David1980]

How long ago was it mailed? IRS transcript perhaps?

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Get-Transcript

[RitaB]

Wait, what?

How to confirm the IRS received a 2013 tax return that had to be mailed in besides:

Calling the IRS and be place on hold for hours.

Yes, it was mailed certified mail and the IRS signed for it.

If IRS signed for it, they got it, right? Am I the only one thinking this? Is the sender the one wanting to know? If so, they know.

[FEDUKE404]

Dealing with Certified Mail

If IRS signed for it, they got it, right? Am I the only one thinking this? Is the sender the one wanting to know? If so, they know.

Certified mail has its drawbacks.

For normal certified mail, anyone in the mail room would sign (likely stamp instead). IIRC, certified mail does not necessary require one of those green cards (extra cost?) to be returned to the sender but the sender SHOULD be able to track online the path of the certified letter to the IRS.

(A more realistic problem is that often no one even notices the Cert Mail green stick-on thing and the envelope ends up being processed just like any other envelope to the IRS. The presence of bar codes on the label does seem to be lessening that problem.)

Of course, this statement ("Yes, it was mailed certified mail and the IRS signed for it.") confuses me greatly. It appears the IRS did get the mail ? ? What exactly is there now to "confirm"? ?

No one has mentioned when the return was mailed. The IRS is ridiculously slow in processing paper returns (which is no longer a wise means of submission for any number of reasons). Maybe their hard drive crashed??

If there is a refund, the "Where's My Refund" thing might provide some insight.

As for taking my time to call the IRS for a matter of this type....that would be near the bottom of the list of options I would consider.

FE

[AZ-Tax]

I went ahead and called the IRS BUT

I went ahead and called the IRS (1 hours 30 min hold) and the IRS just finished processing the return and mailed out a letter since form 9465 was attached. If the IRS can give us statuses on line relating to returns with refunds, why cant they expand that and offer the same online status for tax returns for which a balance was due. Yes, it would sound logically if the IRS signed, stamped etc. as receiving the mail that contained the tax return, but that does not necessary mean the IRS received. The IRS has lost a few tax returns over the years I mailed certified.

[FEDUKE404]

Playing the waiting game

I went ahead and called the IRS (1 hours 30 min hold) and the IRS just finished processing the return and mailed out a letter since form 9465 was attached. If the IRS can give us statuses on line relating to returns with refunds, why cant they expand that and offer the same online status for tax returns for which a balance was due. Yes, it would sound logically if the IRS signed, stamped etc. as receiving the mail that contained the tax return, but that does not necessary mean the IRS received. The IRS has lost a few tax returns over the years I mailed certified.

You must have far more free time (and patience) than I ever would.

No one ever stated when the return was originally mailed. I still have a couple of 2013 paper returns (forced into using such by various circumstances) that were mailed sometime in early April and are still somewhere in the bowels of the IRS system. I just don't let it bother me. . .especially since there is nothing I can do to speed up their (anemic) processing time for paper returns. As for amended returns, I've been telling my clients a completed adjustment in anything less than one year can likely be considered a moral victory.

That's just the way it now is. . . .

As for Certified Mail, other than giving you a security blanket, using such in no way increases the through-put time with those IRS data-entry folks. All you really know is that your envelope arrived in a very large IRS mail processing room, which would likely occur anyway with a properly addressed first-class mail envelope that was mailed from a "safe" location, such as at a postal facility or de minimis dropped into a USPS secure mail box.

FE