Accepted means your tax return is now in the government's hands and has passed the initial inspection (your verification info is correct, dependents haven't already been claimed by someone else, etc.).
- After acceptance, the next step is for the government to approve your refund.
This year, millions of refunds have been delayed due to a processing backlog created by the pandemic, which shut down the IRS for a time.
- The IRS also has millions of returns that have to be manually verified which is also causing a delay.
Keep checking the IRS Where's My Refund page to see if your refund status has been updated
This is not a normal tax year. The IRS in most tax years will issue a tax refund within 21 days after the tax return has been accepted in 90% of the time.
From this IRS website - https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-operations-during-covid-19-mission-critical-functions-continue
As of May 15, 2021, we had 300,000 individual tax returns received prior to 2021 in the processing pipeline. Including current year returns, as of May 15, 2021, we had 16.4 million unprocessed individual returns in the pipeline. Unprocessed returns include those requiring correction to the Recovery Rebate Credit amount or validation of 2019 income used to figure the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC). This work does not require us to correspond with taxpayers but does require special handling by an IRS employee so, in these instances, it is taking the IRS more than 21 days to issue any related refund. If, as a result, a correction is made to any RRC, EITC or ACTC claimed on the return, the IRS will send taxpayers an explanation. Taxpayers are encouraged to continue to check Where’s My Refund? for their personalized refund status and can review Tax Season Refund Frequently Asked Questions.
