How to Check my IRS ERC Refund Status

The featured photo shows a backlog of overdue paper work at the IRS that is causing ERC refund delays.

Did you file for the employee retention credit months ago and are wondering if you’ll ever get it? Not sure if you should be calling the IRS, or hiring a collection attorney? Well don’t sweat it, you’re not alone. Right now, the IRS is what the kids might call, “a hot mess”.

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ERC Refund Delays

Not only are people experiencing ERC refund delays, the IRS is severely backlogged on pretty much everything. According to Accounting Today, the IRS was staring down 8 million tax returns that had yet to be processed all the way back in 2020.

When asked what caused such a jam, the IRS cited pandemic and staffing issues. It seems that the labor shortage has affected the public and private sectors alike.

Though the effects of the pandemic have begun to subside, ERC refund delays aren’t likely to clear up any time soon. That’s because in April of 2022, Forbes reported that the IRS’s stack of unprocessed returns had ballooned to a whopping 23.5 million tax returns still waiting for manual processing, including paper returns that were filed as far back as April 2021.

As it stands, ERC refund delays are expected to extend the wait time for payments to about 6 to 10 months from filing, and that might be a generous estimate.

How to Check Your IRS ERC Refund Status

 If you’re uh… what’s the word… peeved? Perturbed? Ready to kick some a**, I totally understand. Before we pick up the torch and pitchfork though, maybe we should try the phone first. There are a few ways to check your IRS ERC refund status, but it’s hard to say which route is less irritating. It is the IRS after all, an organization whose unpopularity is eclipsed only by this writer’s own in grade and high school.

You can call the IRS directly via their telephone number, (877)-777-4778 (that’s a lot of 7s…). I would not hold your breath though. According to a statement from Jessica Lucas-Judy, Director of Strategic Issues, out of the 195 million people that called the IRS during last year’s tax season, only 11 million got the privilege of talking to an actual human being.

In truth though, you would be lucky to be one of the 24 million callers who were connected to an automated system, because 160 million of the callers didn’t even get to talk to a robot, because they didn’t connect at all. Even the machines are calling out of work these days.

(Thankfully, there is another way to check your IRS ERC refund status. According to the IRS themselves, the best way to check a refund status is to go on their website to a page literally dubbed, “Where’s my Refund?”.

How to Check Your IRS ERC Refund StatusFigure above shows IRS “Where’s my Refund” Tool

From all the options, the “Where’s my Refund” tool has the highest chances of getting you somewhere. Just keep in mind you will need the following info:

  • Your Social Security numbers
  • Your filing status
  • Your exact whole dollar refund amount

They say on their site you can use this tool to see your IRS ERC refund status 24 hours after the IRS receives your electronic return, or 4 weeks after mailing a paper return. While it is always good to think positively, you may want to take that with a hefty, America-sized grain of salt.

Also, if you have filed an amended claim, you instead have to go to the IRS amended return status checker shown below. Having fun yet?

Amended Return Status IRS

Is There Any Way to Get my Refund Faster?

 No. Just kidding. Sort of… All these delays in processing have an upside believe it or not. Because the IRS has not processed a lot of returns yet, many employers still haven’t received their full refund because of errors they made calculating their filing. This is good news because the IRS says if you have employment tax deposits from your employee withholdings from other quarters, then you can just keep those withheld wages in the amount you are eligible for the employee retention credit. This relieves the work load of both parties.

If you elect to go this route, however, proceed with caution. If you end up keeping more than you should, when the IRS finally does process your return, you may owe money you don’t have, resulting in late fees, interest, and a whole world of problems that snowball quickly.

While employee retention credit refund delays are annoying, they don’t cost you money. If you fumble your filing and money management however, it will. That is why it is best to either do all the due diligence and become an expert on the subject matter yourself, or simply hire an expert to do it for you.

Now I’ll level with you, I have always tried to go the DIY route. After trying to be a writer, a plumber, an electrician, carpenter, gardener, tax expert, graphic designer, programmer, and entrepreneur all at once, I learned something, asking for help isn’t just okay, it’s often the wisest route.

DIY is fun, but I realized I was cutting my own potential short by trying to re-invent the wheel. The funny part is I thought I was saving money, but hiring professionals is not only often much easier, it actually costs less in the short AND long run, and is lightyears faster. The truth is, the professionals are who they are for a reason. They get it done faster, with higher quality. By paying for their services, I helped them, and myself. Economics or something? Dunno, didn’t pay attention in that class.

I do know this though, that once I accepted that having professionals do what they do best is often the optimal route for everyone, miraculously, my house started to get finished, my wife was less grumpy, and I experienced this weird and unsettling thing called relaxation, and dare I say, even joy. Something I hadn’t felt in earnest since my childhood.

I don’t know why it is so hard for me, and I suspect you as well, to ask for help. I can’t tell if it is because I am cheap, or it is an ego thing where I must insist I know everything at all times. Either way, my life got much smoother, and oddly enough, the more money I spent on professionals, the more I seemed to have. Economics? Voodoo? I have about equal knowledge in both. What I did learn however, is that egos are expensive, and a good and profitable professional service will make you money, that’s how their whole business model works.

You hear all your life that you have to spend money to make money, but only a select few are crazy enough to actually live their life by that creed. I suspect that is why so few people experience true success. It takes courage, getting out of your comfort zone, and being willing at least, to take risks and maximizing the use of all resources available to you.

Now is really not the time to be cocky. One mistake in filing the 941-x form could equate to it taking years to get your money. Time is money, and you could easily lose a fortune if you don’t let someone with the hard-won experience handle it.

The bottom line is, the fastest way to ensure you get all your money and avoid a lot of headaches, is to go with the professionals.

Seriously, Will I EVER Get my ERC Refund Checks?

 Sadly, there are not many great answers for when you can expect your ERC refund checks. If you filed early on, the IRS is saying you can expect the refunds 6 to 9 months from filing. Unfortunately, if you’re just filing now, it could take upwards of 12 months. The ERC refund delay is just one of the many consequences of a global pandemic, increasing supply chain and labor issues, and the myriad of other problems plaguing the world at the moment. In fact, the IRS had to hire and train a whole new team of agents in order to hand this entirely new, unprecedented payroll tax refund program.

While this article may feel like a downer, it ends on an unexpectedly high note for a piece on tax refunds from the IRS. You see, there are a lot of clever ways to expedite the process, but they’re complicated, and require a lot of knowledge on bureaucracy that sounds about as fun as, well trying to talk to a human at the IRS.

For this reason, if it were me, I would not hesitate to go with Baron. I need money now, and these guys know how to get it. Don’t ask me where they learned it, but they speak the weird and twisted language of the IRS bureaucrats, and I for one, couldn’t be more thankful for them to be my translator. My guess is, Baron will get you more, faster. Even if you’re filing now, you can still claim employee retention credits retroactively, something I only just learned thanks again, to Baron.

At the end of the day though, there’s only one way to know if Baron can help you or not. Thankfully that part is pretty simple. Just give them a call. I can personally guarantee you’ll get a human answering you on the other end, and a pretty good one too I might add, as far as humans go.

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