Hi, do you know how long we will expect the tax refund if we made a paper filing? It has been 6 weeks since I filed one. Should I contact the IRS?

[rjs]

Do not contact the IRS. The IRS processing centers were closed for several months because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and they did not process any mailed tax returns. They just recently started to reopen the processing centers and process the mailed tax returns, but they have limited staff and a huge backlog, so it will be quite a while before your tax return is processed or any status information is available.

The IRS web site says the following.

"We're experiencing delays in processing paper tax returns due to limited staffing. If you already filed a paper return, we will process it in the order we received it.

"Do not file a second tax return or contact the IRS about the status of your return."

You could check Where's My Refund? on the IRS web site every couple of weeks. Eventually your tax return will show up there.