Refund Status

[FatGuy233]

My brother and I both mailed in our Federal Tax returns to the Utah IRS address (we live in Wyoming) at the end of March. We sent them certified mail so we know for sure that they were both delivered. 

It's going on 8+ weeks now and the "Where's my Refund" site still does not show that either of our returns have been received or processed. We are both expecting refunds.

I tried calling the IRS but that's an exercise in futility because their automated phone system just gives you the same useless info as their website and it's impossible to reach a real person.

How long do we wait before assuming our returns were lost / misplaced and try sending them in again??? I'm really not sure what to do and in all my years of paying taxes I don't ever recall it taking this long, even last year with all the COVID-19 stuff.

[Critter-3]

Mailed in returns required human interaction and the IRS is short on humans again this year and tasked with doing much more than normal so the usual processing times are going to be much much longer again this year ... check the IRS site once a week until you see the return is being processed.  

[FatGuy233]

It's been another 4 weeks and still nothing. Should we keep waiting indefinitely, or file again? And if we file again, how do we not get in trouble for double-filing if the IRS finally finds our original returns? Thank you!

[DoninGA]

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@FatGuy233 wrote:

It's been another 4 weeks and still nothing. Should we keep waiting indefinitely, or file again? And if we file again, how do we not get in trouble for double-filing if the IRS finally finds our original returns? Thank you!

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No, do not file the same tax return again.  It will only prolong the process.

The IRS is seriously behind in processing 2020 tax returns.  This is due to many factors, such as the pandemic, completing processing of millions of 2019 tax returns, stimulus payments, unemployment compensation exclusion tax refunds., changes in the tax code by Congress in the middle of the 2020 tax season and the like.

Millions of taxpayers have not yet received there federal tax refunds.

Go to this IRS website for operational status - https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-operations-during-covid-19-mission-critical-functions-continue

As of June 23, 2021, we had 17.5 million unprocessed individual returns in the pipeline. Unprocessed returns include tax year 2020 returns such as 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.