Tax Refund Status

[antwan69]

Should I be worried?  I e-filed my return and received an Acceptance by both Federal and State on 15 March 2020.  So it is now over 4 weeks (33 days to be exact) since I efiled and have not received my Federal refund, which I authorized as a direct deposit.  I did receive my NJ State Refund.  I went to the IRS Where's My Refund Status and what I keep getting is "Your tax return is still being processed. A refund date will be provided when available".  I tried calling the phone number but due to the current situation with Stimulus and pandemic, there is no person to talk to and the recording gives the same response as website.

[SusanY1]

While "still processing" is a frustrating process, particularly when you are awaiting a refund, it doesn't indicate that there is a problem with your return. It simply means that the system hasn't finished up what needs to be done with the return.

Occasionally (but not always) you can glean a bit more information about your return's status by looking at the transcript that you can find here: Get my Transcript.  If you'd like to try that, you are looking for your "Account transcript" for 2019 .  

What you may sometimes see here is a note that your return is being reviewed.  This is also nothing to worry about - but it indicates that your return requires some help from a live person to move through the queue.  Occasionally it can mean the IRS needs additional information from you, but when that is the case they will mail a letter to you outlining what they need and how to respond. 

As you discovered when you tried to call, there is not much staff at the IRS currently so while returns are typically reviewed within a 45-day window, the processing time could be a little longer given current circumstances.

While this is nothing to worry about, there is also nothing that you can do to speed the process along, unfortunately.   

[antwan69]

Thank you for the reply.  I did sign on to the Get My Transcript and the disconcerting thing was that it said, "No record of return filed" under Wage and Income Transcript and "RETURN NOT PRESENT FOR THIS ACCOUNT" under Account transcript for 2019.  The Account Transcript does show what I paid in Estimated Taxes but it also says "No tax return filed".  Meanwhile Refund Status says Return being processed and I did get Federal Return Accepted from Turbo Tax.  It almost seems like the return was never received by the IRS or at least it was not yet posted.  Any other suggestions to check what is going on?