Greetings,
Like many of you, I am a first time filer for the state of Georgia and I have not received my refund check. As you know, first time filers regardless of whether you file by mail or by some other means (TurboTax etc..), your refund will still come in the form of a mailed paper check.
What you may not know is when you check the status of your refund at "Where's My Refund" at https://gtc.dor.ga.gov/_/#5 , before you enter your information there is a message to the right that says:
"Updates for 2020
As part of the Department of Revenue effort to protect Georgia taxpayers from tax fraud, the following business practices are in effect for 2020:
Income tax return processing will begin February 1, 2020.
Please allow 90 business days to process a return and issue a refund.
All first-time Georgia income tax filers, or taxpayers who have not filed in Georgia for at least five years, will receive a paper check."
The assumption is that three months from 1 February, you should receive a paper refund check. But it says "90 business days." Not 90 calendar days.
If you filed on or before 1 February, 90 business days is June 9, 2020. You must exclude weekends and US holidays. So 90 business days actually excludes 18 Saturdays, 19 Sundays, a state holiday (April 27) and a federal holiday May 25 (Memorial Day).
I hope this resolves some of your frustration. Since it is only April when I am responding to this post and regardless of when you sent your tax return they didn't start processing to 1 February, the absolute soonest you can anticipate receiving a return is in June. Some may have already ready gotten a state return before that time, but that is because their return wasn't flagged for further review. If your return was flagged for further review, they are attempting to determine if your return is from a legitimate taxpayer or fraud. That doesn't mean you won't get a return, it just means they have to do additional checks to verify, which in turn, creates a delay.
This article explains in detail about the fraud measures the state of Georgia has implemented,
https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/georgia-warns-2017-state-tax-ref[product key...
