IRS website - https://www.irs.gov/individuals/refund-timing

Taxpayers who claim the Earned Income Tax Credit or the Additional Child Tax Credit may experience a refund hold. According to the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act, the IRS cannot issue these refunds before mid-February. The IRS expects the first EITC/ACTC related refunds to be available in taxpayer bank accounts or on debit cards by the first week of March, if they chose direct deposit and there are no other issues with their tax return.

I just don't understand why it gets later and later every year. I've been married to the same person for 10+ years, have the same kids with the same information for 10 years, jobs have been the same for almost 10 years. By this point, why does the IRS have to verify anything for my refund? It's 2020 for the love of everything! We can exchange information on the internet almost instantly and every year it takes longer and longer to verify the SAME information that a lot of us have had for years. I'm just confused. Does the IRS not have enough staff? I could probably verify a person's income, address, and dependents in less than 10 minutes if given the correct software to do so. I know they have to make sure no one else claims your dependents, but in cases like mine, that doesn't factor in. If anyone but me claims them, and I didn't get a divorce (also an easy thing to look up) red flag the impersonator, but if it's the same person/couple, I just do not understand why. Any response that isn't just an IRS website reboot would be really helpful. 

It is a mandate by the IRS. 

Part of the reason is for security, ID theft is done sometimes to get the credits, so the IRS looks those returns over. 

Delaying the refund also lets them see if more than one return with the same Social Security Numbers tries to apply for the credits.