Georgians Tax Refund Delays
Americans in the state of Georgia can expect delays in receiving their tax refunds, especially for those who filed their tax returns via paper filings. Those who filed their returns electronically, however, are unlikely to be affected. Why the discrepancy?
It all stems from the economic slowdown in the country and the consequent budget cuts to state governments. In the face of 13 consecutive months of declining tax revenues, the Georgian government has had to embark on stringent cost cutting measures, reducing its expenditure by about $8.4 million this year. Among the measures taken to achieve this are compulsory no pay leave by civil servants. Tax processors in the state government are not spared. Together with all Georgian state civil servants, tax processors have to each take 3 additional days’ compulsory leave without salary by June 30th this year, which happens to be the end of the fiscal year for the state government. Besides these measures, the state government has also had to lay off a number of staff workers.
This precipitated a lack of manpower in the state tax department that resulted in a huge backlog of tax refund cases, thus the delays for Georgians, some of whom have waited months. More acutely affected are the taxpayers who made their tax filings through paper submissions as they are more difficult to evaluate and process.
On the other hand, the delay in issuing refunds results in additional costs to the Georgian government as they have to pay interest to every taxpayer who is issued his or her refund later than 90 days after the April 15 deadline for filing taxes. A similar thing happened last year and the Georgian government had to fork out just over $2 million in interest payments to over 270,000 of its citizens who received their refunds late.
State revenue commissioner Bart Graham said that approximately 55% of Georgians filed their tax returns electronically last year and the remaining 45% did so through paper submissions.
To increase the percentage of taxpayers who make their tax returns electronically, the IRS has issued a regulation requiring all tax preparation firms submitting more than 10 returns per year to do so entirely through electronic means. Due to that, the Georgian state government hopes that things would be better this year and the numbers of delayed tax refunds to substantially reduce.
However, you should not get your hopes up because Georgian Governor Sonny Purdue will be leaving office at the end of this year. How this will affect the financial situation in Georgia will be anybody’s guess.
Darrin T. Mish is a veteran, nationally recognized tax attorney who has focused on providing IRS help to taxpayers for over a decade. He regularly travels the country training other attorneys, CPAs and enrolled agents on how to handle their toughest cases with the IRS. He is highly ranked among the top attorneys in the country, with an AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell and a perfect 10 on Avvo.com. Martindale-Hubbell has also honored him with a listing in their Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers. He is a member of the American Society of IRS Problem Solvers and the Tax Freedom Institute. With clients on every continent but Antarctica, he has what it takes to solve your IRS problems no matter where you live in the world. If you would like more information about his practice and how he can help you, please call his office at (813) 229-7100 or toll free at 1-888-GET-MISH.
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Comments on Georgians Tax Refund Delays
Everytime i go to GA'S website it states your refund is scheduled to be mailed with in two weeks. However it has been saying this for over a month and still no check. Why is this?