All my federal refunds are finally in, so just to put dates on them to close out my 2021 tax refund saga:skip22 wrote: ↑Sun May 08, 2022 9:51 pmJust to update my situation, I hadn't queried my federal return's status on the IRS's "Refund Status" webpage since this past Wednesday or Thursday. However, when I looked this evening, my return is finally showing as approved, and the webpage says the cash (direct deposit to my bank) portion of my refund should be expected by May 11th. (It says the I bonds could take 3 weeks after the refund was sent to be received.)skip22 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 10:27 pm Have appreciated everyone's input on this thread, especially as my situation has dragged on some. In case it happens to anyone else, wanted to mention the delay that has come up for me that I haven't seen noted in this thread yet.
(As with many others here, I upped my withholding, and made an estimated payment, so that I could receive the maximum $5K in I Bonds as the main part of the refund after never having bothered with this I bond refund before.)
My timeline (I e-filed via H&R Block software download):
1) Federal return submitted and accepted on 2/16.
Since then, on the IRS Refund Status page:
For the 1st ~3 weeks after that, I had What I assume is the normal screen with the 3 part bar near the top, that in my case showed the return at the 1st (received) stage.
After 3 weeks or so, the bar part went away and, as others here noted, the "We apologize, but your return processing has been delayed beyond the normal timeframe...." message appeared.
Now, for the last week or two, the message changed a little bit to "Your tax return is still being processed..."
2) Then, last Thursday (4/7), I received a snail mail notification from the IRS that they were worried the return I submitted might be a result of identity theft, and that I needed to either go online or call to answer some questions "to verify your identity before we process the income tax return...". (The generic letter code of the IRS letter is 5071C (https://www.irs.gov/individuals/underst ... c-or-6331c).)
I already had an ID.me account, so I went online that evening and hopefully resolved the issue. (If I remember correctly, they just ask a few questions, including AGI and refund on the return, control # on the IRS letter, etc..)
I thought I read somewhere it said that the normal expected 3 weeks wait for refund after receipt is when I should anticipate the refund after having resolved the 5071C issue. However, per the IRS page I linked to above about letter #5071C, it says "It will take up to 9 weeks to receive your refund or credit any overpayment to your account.". (I hope they're being conservative, and it doesn't take that long.)
A little frustrating that after having submitted 35-40 federal returns in my lifetime, it's the only one with a large anticipated refund that becomes the 1st one I can remember that will have had any noticeable delay.
So, to summarize the main dates for me, they're:
1) Return e-filed (submitted and accepted) with H & R Block software on 2/16.
2) Received letter from the IRS around 4/5 that I needed to verify my identity (IRS code 5071C), which I did online that day.
3) Return approved sometime between 5/4-7.
1) Received cash portion of refund via direct deposit on 5/11.
2) Received paper I bond 5/16. (So, it took almost exactly 3 months from return submittal to full refund. Thankfully received just 1 $5K bond, so it will be easier to convert to electronic.)