Since no one here has any pressing questions to post in the last few days, I'll make a minor rant. It is triggered by this article:
Taxpayers waiting for refunds find little help from IRS's 'Where's My Refund' tool
OK, I get why paper filed returns are bogged down. (In my opinion, people who paper file when they are able to efile deserve what they get in terms of delay).
But why would an efiled return, accepted in mid-March, still have no status showing other than "we are processing your return". Well, obviously they are not processing it, because they would either have already issued the refund by now, or should have sent a letter explaining what they think the problem is. (The state return was processed and refund issued almost immediately).
This happens rarely in my small practice, almost all my clients are referrals who come back every year so the returns usually sail through. In this case, it is a couple filing MFJ, with two children one born in 2020 and the other born in 2021. (The 2020 return had no delays). The EIP3 and ACTC reconciled perfectly, both parents got their letters at the beginning of the year and numbers all add up with no discrepancies. So they are getting refundable RRC for the 2nd child, and refundable CTC for both children (advance was only received for the one born in 2020, as expected). The paid preparer due diligence was included -- does the IRS give any weight to that at all, or is it 100% a method simply to extract penalties from preparers, with no benefit to the taxpayer?
(the rest of the return consists of a few W-2s, some unemployment, a small HSA distribution -- nothing unusual and all backed up by info forms filed with the IRS).
The third refundable credit is PTC - several 1095-A forms were issued for the year, covering different months and different household members, so maybe that is being reviewed (it can be tricky I think when multiple 1095-As need to be consolidated in a single return). this is my best guess as to what the hang-up might be, someone feels they need to review the PTC.
But if a computer flagged the return for hold-and-review, then why can't the same computer either generate a letter requesting further info, or if it is just the one credit as I suspect, why not issue a partial refund and hold the remaining credit until it can be confirmed?
I guess this is what they call a "first world problem" -- after all the taxpayers aren't about to be evicted, and they can feed and clother their toddlers for now, but still this is pretty shameful. I am normally a defender of the IRS, especially when compared to customer service you get from places like big banks, utilities, Google/Netflix, etc. but I can't see how there is any justification in this case.
Taxpayers waiting for refunds find little help from IRS's 'Where's My Refund' tool
OK, I get why paper filed returns are bogged down. (In my opinion, people who paper file when they are able to efile deserve what they get in terms of delay).
But why would an efiled return, accepted in mid-March, still have no status showing other than "we are processing your return". Well, obviously they are not processing it, because they would either have already issued the refund by now, or should have sent a letter explaining what they think the problem is. (The state return was processed and refund issued almost immediately).
This happens rarely in my small practice, almost all my clients are referrals who come back every year so the returns usually sail through. In this case, it is a couple filing MFJ, with two children one born in 2020 and the other born in 2021. (The 2020 return had no delays). The EIP3 and ACTC reconciled perfectly, both parents got their letters at the beginning of the year and numbers all add up with no discrepancies. So they are getting refundable RRC for the 2nd child, and refundable CTC for both children (advance was only received for the one born in 2020, as expected). The paid preparer due diligence was included -- does the IRS give any weight to that at all, or is it 100% a method simply to extract penalties from preparers, with no benefit to the taxpayer?
(the rest of the return consists of a few W-2s, some unemployment, a small HSA distribution -- nothing unusual and all backed up by info forms filed with the IRS).
The third refundable credit is PTC - several 1095-A forms were issued for the year, covering different months and different household members, so maybe that is being reviewed (it can be tricky I think when multiple 1095-As need to be consolidated in a single return). this is my best guess as to what the hang-up might be, someone feels they need to review the PTC.
But if a computer flagged the return for hold-and-review, then why can't the same computer either generate a letter requesting further info, or if it is just the one credit as I suspect, why not issue a partial refund and hold the remaining credit until it can be confirmed?
I guess this is what they call a "first world problem" -- after all the taxpayers aren't about to be evicted, and they can feed and clother their toddlers for now, but still this is pretty shameful. I am normally a defender of the IRS, especially when compared to customer service you get from places like big banks, utilities, Google/Netflix, etc. but I can't see how there is any justification in this case.
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