Your refund is probably taking a long time because the IRS has been overwhelmed with continuing changes to the tax law. The IRS Where’s My Refund? site is still the best first place to go for information.
If you filed your 2020 taxes and haven't received your refund, your experience is very common - the IRS is encountering major delays in processing 2020 tax returns, and is almost impossible to reach by phone.
Why is this happening? Tax season (normally Jan 1 - Apr 15) is the busiest time of the year for the IRS. This year, they have also had to deal with major changes in the tax law, including ones that were passed retroactively in the past two weeks. They are also struggling with the same COVID workplace and workforce issues the rest of the country has encountered.
According to the Washington Post (Mar 12, 2021):
Nearly 7 million tax filers are in limbo and facing substantial delays in getting refunds so far this tax filing season, as the Internal Revenue Service struggles to keep up with the demands of issuing stimulus checks and implementing myriad tax code changes from coronavirus relief packages, including the one President Biden signed this week.
There are 6.7 million returns that have not yet been processed, more than three times the number in the same period last year, when fewer than 2 million returns faced delayed processing, IRS data shows.
