When Will I Receive My IRS Refund?

Is there anything good about filing tax returns each year? Yes, they often produce a tax refund! So, when will I receive my IRS refund this year?

A quick word about tax refunds. If you get a refund each year, you are actually making an error. Why? It means that you are giving too much money to the IRS during the year. This is essentially a free loan to the government. There is nothing wrong with that, but most of us would prefer to have the money in hand. To make a change, look at the number of withholdings being claimed on your paycheck. A few changes can put more money in your pocket throughout the year instead of just during tax season.



The bad news is I spent all weekend doing my taxes. The good news is I am getting a refund! When can I expect it to arrive? The answer is dependent on a couple of things. They range from whether you e-filed your return or sent it in by mail to whether you asked for the refund to be direct deposited to a bank account or sent as a check by mail. Let’s take a closer look.

Anything done by mail with the IRS is going to delay things. As you can imagine, the IRS gets millions of tax returns mailed to it every year around April 15th. This means it has to go through and process all of them must be sorted and put into the system. This is largely done by computers, but even they have issues with so much volume. Assuming there are no problems with your tax return, you can expect a refund to be mailed to you within 6 weeks.

The internet has made things much more convenient these days. This is also true for the IRS and you when it comes to tax refund delivery times. If you e-file your tax return, it goes directly into the IRS computers and really speeds things up. So long as there are no obvious problems with it, the computer will kick out a refund check quickly and you will receive it in only three weeks.



You also have an option of having the IRS directly deposit the money into your bank account. This will speed up the process by maybe a few days or a week. Many worry that letting the IRS know about your bank account invites unwanted attention. This should not be a worry. Why? The IRS already knows about your bank account. Trust me on this one!

When will I receive my refund? It depends on how you file the tax return for this year. E-filing will get your money back in roughly half the time, so do that if you need it quickly.

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