2020 Federal tax return still not processed

[retire-early]

I mailed in my 2020 Federal tax return in late April.
According to the IRS website, paper tax returns are suppose to take 6 weeks.
It has been more than 6 weeks.

A few weeks ago I received a letter from them asking me to submit a form for my 2019 tax return. It would seem that they have just gotten around to processing that.

I have no clue whether they even received the 2020 tax return.
Had I owed taxes the depositing of the check I sent them would indicate receipt.

Has anyone run into this problem?
How long do I wait? I am already past the deadline for filing .
What do I do?

 

[RetireeRobert]

I mailed in my 2021 Federal tax return in late April.
According to the IRS website, paper tax returns are suppose to take 6 weeks.
It has been more than 6 weeks.

A few weeks ago I received a letter from them asking me to submit a form for my 2019 tax return. It would seem that they have just gotten around to processing that.

I have no clue whether they even received the 2021 tax return.
Had I owed taxes the depositing of the check I sent them would indicate receipt.

Has anyone run into this problem?
How long do I wait? I am already past the deadline for filing .
What do I do?

If you only filed in April, you are expecting action way too early. I filed in late February and it took until mid/late April before the IRS even finally showed my tax return on their "Refund Status" system as "Return still being processed". It has been in "processing" status now for nearing two months!

 

[NgineER]

This thread has some discussion on it. https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/late-federal-refund-108730.html

I mailed mine on 3/16 and it was not until the beginning of June that the IRS where's my refund site even acknowledged receipt of the filing. It still says that it is being processed.

 

[retire-early]

Thank you both.

I wish I had spent the ~$9 on Priority Mail so I had some tracking information.

Lesson learned.

 

[scrabbler1]

I filed my 2020 return in late February (from the P.O. so I got a receipt for the added postage) but it didn't get processed until the end of April. I didn't owe any money and rolled into 2021 a small refund. I had set up an online IRS account in March and didn't see the record of it getting processed until I checked it early May, the same time I was set to receive the third stimulus check.

The IRS, meanwhile, didn't process my 2019 return until later in May. I had included a paper check with that return, filed in March of 2019 (when the pandemic's lockdown began), a check which was cashed that same month so I knew they got it. I never received the second stimulus check, so I took the $600 as a credit on my 2020 return (contributing to the small refund I rolled over).

 

[Gumby]

I filed my paper return by certified mail on 2/19/21. I finally received the refund check on 6/21/21, over 17 weeks later. They paid me interest at 3% simple from April 15th.

 

[John Galt III]

My status for my 2020 refund on the IRS website is "still processing". But a new wrinkle is that the IRS sent me a letter wanting me to "verify my identity" before they will issue the refund. I'm supposed to go online and enter a lot of my personal info, which I do not want to do, so my other option, with less personal info required, is phoning a number. Every time I phone the number, it has 2 minutes of blurb, then say "due to extremely high call volume, we are unable to. blah, blah. Please call back later". I may eventually break down and use the online system, even though it asks for a lot of personal info. Like the last 8 digits of your credit card number.