IRS Experiencing Heavy Use of their “Where’s My Refund?” Tool

Due to the heavy volume of refund inquiries that the IRS is presently experiencing and expects to continue experiencing for the next couple of weeks, access to the “Where’s My Refund?” application may be limited during certain times of the day.

In order to avoid any disruptions in the use of “Where’s My Refund?”, the IRS strongly suggests that taxpayers only check on the status of their refunds once a day. The IRS systems are only updated once a day (usually at night). Therefore the earliest the status of a refund would change after a taxpayer has checked it, is the next day.

Also, to reduce system delays in checking on the status of a refund, the best time to access “Where’s My Refund?” is in the evening or on weekends.

As a reminder the expectation of when the IRS will send a refund to the taxpayer is within 21 days from the time the return has been accepted. The same information that appears on “Where’s My Refund?” will be given to the taxpayer if they call the IRS Help Desk.

Remember, here is how the “Where’s My Refund?” tool works this filing season:

• The refund status will be presented by way of a status bar as follows:
• Return Received - From the time the return is received until the refund has been approved the message will be that the return is being processed and that the refund will be sent in less than 21 days.
• Refund Approved – A date the refund is scheduled to be sent to the bank will be given.
• Refund Sent – The date the refund was sent.
• Taxpayer will be able to see what the status of the processing of their return is within 24 hours after their return has been accepted.

See the IRS Alert Statement on “Where’s My Refund?” on the IRS website for more information.