In
late January, the IRS sent an email to us tax professionals warning that tax
refunds could be delayed a week this tax season because of new anti-fraud
safeguards. The IRS had fine-tuned its identity theft filters to prevent the
growing trend of tax refund fraud. Many taxpayers who wrote to have said that
they were experiencing much longer delays than a week.
The
IRS also had problems with its “Where’s My Refund" tool giving a different
date whenever taxpayers checked up on the status of their refunds, and last
month the page told many taxpayers that it had no information on the status of
their tax refunds.