IRS Refund Delay Taxing Tulsans' Patience

Millions of taxpayers are asking, 'Where's my refund?' The IRS says a computer glitch has caused refunds to be delayed by several weeks.

It's that time of year, tax preparers hunched over a computer and taxpayers waiting to see if they owe the IRS or if it owes them. But this year the people who are owed money by the government are running into a frustrating delay.

"That was the first message I got this morning, it woke me up on Facebook," said Linda Garrett of Jackson Hewitt.

Jackson Hewitt's Linda Garrett says her phone has been busy with people who are waiting on money from the IRS.

"They are very frustrated when they come in and the first response to them is.'Am I being audited? Is there a problem?'" Garrett said.

Garrett says it's a technical issue with IRS computers; two separate problems have caused delays by as much as two weeks.

"It appears to be more of the dates that you filed versus what you filed. Those February 2 through the 6th tax returns have just caused a bottle neck and the IRS is processing returns daily, they're accepting returns daily, it's just the check that are being issued are backed up," she said.

Where's My Refund?

It's important to note this is not a tax preparer issue. It doesn't matter whether it was H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, or even TurboTax that did your taxes. This is on the federal level; there was a glitch in new software installed at the IRS.

"It was put in place to help stop fraudulent returns," Garrett said.

Garrett says the IRS has new software that's designed to catch fraudulent returns before the agency sends out the money.

She says the IRS is reporting that everything is back to normal now and hopes that taxpayers understand.

"But you are just going to have to be patient as the IRS works through these problems and processes them," Garrett said.