Delayed tax refunds prevent closure for grieving families during the

Michele Treacy lost her father at the beginning of the pandemic. However, a delayed tax refund has prolonged the grief she and her family are feeling and prevented them from finding closure. Treacy's father, Col. Lester Romine, 91, passed away at the beginning of March 2020. As he'd named Treacy, 57, his executor, she filed his paper tax return on time in July 2020. She and her three siblings were eager to receive his $2,300 federal refund to finalize and close his estate, yet Treacy is still working with their attorney over a year later."I promised my dad before he died that I would take care of this for him," said Treacy, who lives in Kinnelon, New Jersey. "I'm trying to honor his legacy and my promise to him."More from Personal Finance:Your tax return preparer may not be regulated. How Congress may change thatTax refunds and stimulus checks delayed by identity fraud crossfireSome parents still confused about how monthly child tax credit payments workTreacy's family is one of the millions with delayed tax refunds this year. By the end of the 2021 tax filing season, the IRS had processed 135.8 million returns, down from 145.5 million the previous year, according to Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent office within the IRS. Some of the backlog has been caused by the high volume of returns with stimulus payments and other credits needing manual review, Taxpayer Advocate Service reported. But there were still 10.1 million unprocessed individual returns as of Aug. 20, according to the IRS. The agency's website said returns requiring "special handling" by an employee may take up to 120 days to process."It's been very frustrating for our clients," said Larry Harris, a certified financial planner and director of tax services at Parsec Financial in Asheville, North Carolina. These snags are common when there's a final tax return with a refund, he said. While final returns for those who've died may follow the same process as those for living taxpayers, Harris said there's an extra step when a deceased taxpayer has a refund. That's because these returns include Form 1310, which must be paper-filed, causing further lags."These situations create a lot of angst for clients when they're waiting for the refund to close out the estate," Harris added. Although many IRS offices were closed due to Covid-19, Treacy called about once per month. She received little information, however, about her father's pending refund and eventually filed a grievance with Taxpayer Advocate Service. Still, there were no updates, even after checking the status through the Where's My Refund tool. With millions of overdue refunds, usage for the IRS tool spiked to more than 483 million through May 2021, according to Taxpayer Advocate Service's mid-year report. However, many taxpayers couldn't get updates on when to expect their refund or what was causing the delay.


All data is taken from the source: http://cnbc.com
Article Link: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/29/delayed-tax-refunds-prevent-closure-for-grieving-families-amid-pandemic.html


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