This past year, the IRS generally released most refunds within five business days of when the return was filed. In February, however, there was a period of time where 7.8 million refunds were temporarily delayed due to processing problems at the IRS. According to a recent report of the Treasury Inspector General, these problems were due to programming problems related to the IRS expansion of its new MeF system. The IRS resolved these problems and was able to resume normal processing of refunds by the end of February. Click Here to view the report of the Inspector Genrael.

Although most refunds are being paid this year by the IRS within five business days, some are not. When a refund is not paid within five business days, it means that the IRS is running some additional checks against the taxpayer data to make sure that the return information appears accurate. This IRS delay usually lasts no more than one additional week. For refunds that have not been paid by the IRS that are older than two to three weeks, it is usually the case that the taxpayer’s refund has been offset by the IRS to repay a debt. In other cases, the IRS is attempting to verify some data with the taxpayer before it releases the refund. In these cases, the IRS will mail a notice to the taxpayer to request additional information. As has been the case in prior years, the IRS will continue to release some of these refunds over the summer and fall months through the end of 2012. The percentage of refunds delayed is no currently no higher than it has been in prior years.