IRS stokes anger with Where’s My Refund push amid delays

A processing backlog at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) continues to leave countless taxpayers in the dark about the state of their tax refunds. With many turning to the agency for help, the IRS this week fanned the flames of their frustration by recommending the same-old solutions—despite knowing those solutions to be of limited use for taxpayers facing delays. 

“Ordering a tax transcript is NOT a secret way to get a refund date,” the agency said in a tweet on Thursday. “Use the #IRS online tool ‘Where’s My Refund?’ instead.” 

The problem is, that online tool doesn’t show a refund date for unprocessed returns, nor does it even tell users what might be holding them up. Rather, it tends to surface very generic and unhelpful messages like, “Your return processing has been delayed beyond the normal timeframe.” Of course, anyone who is waiting for a refund check to arrive in their bank account would already know that. 

In fact, the IRS itself has acknowledged that the Where’s My Refund? tool is often useless. In its annual report to Congress last year, the National Taxpayer Advocate—an office within the agency that acts as a kind of consumer watchdog—said “many taxpayers checking the tool could not secure specific information as to when they would receive their refund, and just as importantly, what is causing the delay.” It recommended an upgrade, but that would require resources that the agency may not have. 

With few options for up-to-date information, many taxpayers in online forums have discovered that they can sometimes get a direct-deposit date for their refund by viewing their tax transcripts at the right time. On Thursday, for example, many users in a Facebook group dedicated to tax refunds rejoiced at seeing the date March 9 on their newly updated transcripts, which indicates that a deposit is forthcoming.

The IRS would seem to prefer that taxpayers not use transcripts for this purpose, although it has been somewhat cryptic about why. An FAQ page on the topic merely states that transcripts are “best and most often used to validate past income and tax filing status for mortgage, student, and small business loan applications, and to help with tax preparation.”

Either way, it’s easy to see why this week’s tweet by the IRS provoked such a negative response from users who have not had luck getting information about their refunds through the recommended channels. “This is a joke right?” one user posted.

As of the end of last year, the IRS was facing a backlog of some 6 million unprocessed returns, and that was before the current tax season even began. Lawmakers in Congress have been at loggerheads over how to combat the problem, with Democrats saying the agency clearly needs more funding and some Republicans suggesting the IRS staff just needs to be forced back to the office.