Refund delayed? The usual reasons, and the IP PIN
Credit holds, identity verification letters, a return already filed under your number, and offsets. Why refunds stall, and how an IP PIN prevents one problem.
Quick answers
- Why is my refund taking so long?
- Common reasons are the legal hold on returns claiming the earned income or additional child tax credit, an identity verification letter that stops processing, a return already filed under your number, or an offset for a past-due debt.
- What is an IP PIN and do I need one?
- An IP PIN is a six-digit number that stops someone else filing a return under your Social Security number or ITIN. Anyone who can verify their identity may opt in, and the fastest route is the IP PIN section of your IRS online account.
- What if someone already filed using my Social Security number?
- File your return on paper, since the electronic route is closed for that year, and send Form 14039, the Identity Theft Affidavit, with it. The IRS then works the year by hand, which takes considerably longer than a normal return.
Most refunds on electronically filed returns arrive without incident. The ones that stall usually stall for a small number of identifiable reasons, and only some of them are anything you can act on.
The mid-February hold
By law, the IRS holds the refund on any return claiming the earned income credit or the additional child tax credit until mid-February. It applies to the entire refund, not only the portion attributable to the credit, and it exists to give the IRS time to match returns against employer records before the money leaves.
Nothing about this hold indicates a problem with your return. Filing in January does not shorten it, and calling does not shorten it either. Expect the money some way after the hold lifts rather than on the day it does, because the payment still has to be processed and deposited.
Identity verification letters
If something about the return does not match what the IRS expects, processing stops and a letter asks you to confirm that you are the person who filed it. Letter 5071C and Letter 4883C are the two you are most likely to see.
The route to clear each one is printed in the letter itself, and they are not the same. One generally directs you to an online identity verification service, with a telephone alternative; the other generally asks you to call the number printed on the letter. Follow the letter you were sent rather than instructions written for a different one.
Have the letter, the return it refers to, the return for the year before it, and the supporting documents for both in front of you when you start. Verification questions tend to come from figures on those returns.
Until you complete it, the return sits unprocessed. This is the delay most often worth acting on quickly, because the clock on your refund does not restart until the verification is done.
When someone has already filed under your number
An electronically filed return rejected because a return already exists for your Social Security number is the standard first sign of tax-related identity theft. The rejection is the system working, and the fix is procedural.
File the return on paper, since the electronic route is now closed for that year, and file Form 14039, the Identity Theft Affidavit, with it. The IRS then works the year by hand, which takes considerably longer than a normal return and generally ends with your refund paid and the fraudulent filing removed.
Keep everything. Identity theft cases tend to produce correspondence for more than one season, and the file you build in the first month is the one that answers questions in the ninth.
The Identity Protection PIN
An IP PIN is a six-digit number that prevents someone else from filing a return using your Social Security number or ITIN. A return filed electronically without the correct IP PIN, once you have one, is rejected.
Anyone with a Social Security number or ITIN who can verify their identity is eligible to opt in, whether or not they have been a victim of anything, and parents and guardians can request one for a dependent. The fastest route is the IP PIN section of your IRS online account. For people who cannot create an online account there is a paper application, Form 15227, for those under the income limits the IRS publishes, and an in-person option at a Taxpayer Assistance Center. Both of those take weeks rather than minutes.
The part people miss is the renewal. An IP PIN is valid for one calendar year, and a new one is generated for your account each year. Retrieve the current one before you file, and give it to whoever prepares your return, because a missing or incorrect IP PIN gets an electronic return rejected and holds a paper one until it can be verified.
Offsets
A refund can be reduced or taken entirely to pay a debt. The Bureau of the Fiscal Service applies these, generally for past-due child support, non-tax debts owed to federal agencies such as a defaulted federal student loan, and state income tax.
Federal tax you already owe for another year works differently. The IRS applies the overpayment to that balance itself rather than sending it through the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, and a question about it is one to take up with the IRS.
For the offsets above, you receive a notice showing what was taken and which agency received it, and the dispute goes to that agency rather than to the IRS. If the debt belongs to your spouse rather than to you, injured spouse relief is the route to your share of the refund.
When calling helps
Rarely, and later than feels natural. The IRS asks that you wait until at least twenty-one days after an electronic return was accepted, or six weeks after a paper return was mailed, before calling about a refund, and the telephone representatives generally see the same information the online tool shows.
Two situations are worth the call: the online tool tells you to contact the IRS, or a letter asks you to. Otherwise, check the tool once a day, answer any letter that arrives by the date printed on it, and let the process run.