IRS: Tax Refunds With EITC, ACTC Held Up Until February 15

Now that tax season is officially underway, a lot of parents will want to get their taxes in quickly to get their refunds back as soon as possible. A recent law will slow that process down.

“Last year was the first year that we were required by law to delay sending out any refunds for a tax return that claimed either the Earned Income Tax Credit or the Additional Child Tax Credit,” said IRS spokesman Michael Devine. “What that does is that gives the IRS more time to review the documents that are sent in to the IRS by your employers and your banks and your credit unions against what the tax returns are claiming.”

This is so neither you nor the IRS gets ripped off.

“There’s a lot of fraud involved with that,” said Devine. “Criminals try to take advantage of the fact that, in the past, companies didn’t have to send the IRS the information on their employees until much later. Right now, you get your W-2s and we get the W-2 information at the same time.”

It’s not that long of a wait, if you get your return in right away.

“The 15th of February is when we will start releasing the refunds so the treasury department can send them out,” said Devine. “It’s going to take another maybe 10 days for those refunds to actually hit people’s bank accounts. It will be the end of February for people claiming the EITC or ACTC. That’s when you’re going to get your refunds, but that’s to help us cut down on fraud.”

Another way to cut down your fraud risk is to file right away, as the IRS takes the first return it sees as valid from a given Social Security number.