A state refund may feel like a bonus amount in our bank account or mail. However, a state or tax refund is the difference between the taxes we’ve paid, and the taxes we actually owe the government. This “over-payment” happens even to the best of us.
How to Track Your State Refund | Where’s My Refund
Where’s My Refund
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If we did overpay the government, we can easily go to Where’s My Refund of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website.
Where’s My Refund is IRS’s menu, to easily track state refunds. This task of monitoring the refund is made even more convenient for us, taxpayers, through the use of the IRS2Goapp or IRS.gov, which are both available, 24/7. You can easily check the status of your refund within 24 hours of receipt, of your e-filed return. However, if it’s a mail paper return, you will have to wait for four weeks. The link is updated every 24 hours; so you need not check the status of your refund all the time.
Have the following details ready when checking your state refund: Social Security number, filing status, and your refund amount. Where’s My Refund shows you the progress of your state refund in three stages:
1. Return Received
The “Return Received” status tells that the request is in the works. No refund date will be visible yet, until the IRS has finished processing the tax refund request, and has given it’s approval of it.
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2. Refund Approved
Once the IRS has finished processing the request, the status of the state refund will change to “Refund Approved.” Having a Refund Approved status could take days, provided also, that the state refund request does not encounter any kind of setbacks.
Some requests take longer to process due to claims for Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), or Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC), or Form 8379, Injured Spouse Allocation incomplete data. Such claims take up to 14 days of processing. Other causes of delay include insufficient information, identity theft or fraud, or, simply, the request was filed before February 15.
The IRS will give a personalized refund date the moment the request is approved. The IRS issues 9 out of 10 refunds within 21 days of filing, if you e-file with direct deposit to the account.
3. Refund Sent
The status we all want to see. “Refund Sent” means that the IRS has already sent the refund to the financial institution for direct deposit. Usually, it takes 1 – 5 days for a financial institution to deposit the amount into the bank account. It could take several weeks, though by snail mail, for the check to arrive. So, if you want to receive the refund in the safest and speediest time possible, the IRS encourages to file taxes electronically, and to make sure all the pertinent data provided is accurate and complete, including the names of the spouse and dependents (if any), and bank account and routing number, for direct deposit.
Learn more about how to check the status of your tax refund in this video from Furgison & Co, CPA:
Got other life hacks in tracking your state refund? Share with us your experience in the comments section below.
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