We have had this question so much that we decided to post on this issue. The question ‘When will I get my tax refund‘ or ‘when is the first day the IRS will process my tax return?‘ has been asked of us so many times that we wanted to acknowledge it.
Let’s start with the IRS opinion on anyone giving out this date before they official announce it.
"the IRS cautions taxpayers from relying on misleading refund charts on the internet that project tax refund dates. Any speculation about refund dates in (2019) is premature. In addition, these refund charts can overlook that many different factors affect the timing of tax refunds, ranging from the accuracy of information on the return to whether a taxpayer files electronically. In addition, the IRS and state revenue departments have increased their security protocols against identity theft and refund fraud, which also can affect the timing of federal and state refunds." source.
Please do not use our Refund Schedule as the gold standard, there are so many factors that impact your refund timing.
We just provide a general chart to give you some idea of when you will receive your tax refund.
With that said, we estimate the IRS to begin processing tax returns on January 18th, 2019 for 2018 Tax Returns. This is our opinion based on prior years. We have had the government shutdown issue in the past and it really didn’t impact refund timing.
That being said, we also estimate they will start testing their processing software on January 11th, 2019 so many could actually see their tax returns early(January 25th, 2019) per our 2019 Refund Schedule.
We will update our schedule if anything does happen from now to then, but just know that every person’s tax situation is different. So just because your friend Tommy got his tax return before you, doesn’t mean that yours is delayed.
Please share this information. It’s not click-bait or fake news, it’s the opinion of pretty much every tax professional in the field.