Many Oklahomans Waiting For State Tax Return

If you haven't gotten your state income tax refund, you're not alone; some peoples' check may be delayed. The Oklahoma Tax Commission said it is not experiencing any problems, but one woman we spoke with said she's been waiting for her refund for nearly six weeks and can't get an explanation from the state.

Christy Cates is used to being put on hold by the Oklahoma Tax Commission, then being disconnected. The mother of two said she filed her and her husband's taxes on February 1st; she got her federal return within days, but it's a different story for the state return.

"About three or four weeks went by and I realized we haven't gotten our state income tax, so I started calling," Cates said.

Check The Status Of Your Refund

Every time she calls the Oklahoma Tax Commission, she gets the same automated message.

"Today I called about 20 times already," Cates said.

She is not alone. After we reached out to viewers on our Facebook page, we received 100 responses in about an hour. Many saying it has never taken this long to get their refunds. One wrote, "I'm still waiting on my state refund 6 weeks later, but that's the government for you."

Paula Ross, with the Oklahoma Tax Commission, said, "We didn't start doing refunds until January 31 because we had to wait for the IRS to open up the filing."

If you file electronically the tax commission said it should take seven to ten days to get your refund, but there may be one main reason some are seeing delays.

"In February, we were pretty busy because we did do some checks for fraud and we had about 40,000 returns that were somewhat delayed because we did some edits," Ross said.

Ross said the only other explanation is there may have been an issue with your return. She said if there was a problem, the commission will send a letter in the mail.

"At the end of February and beginning of March, our phones are extremely busy, so there will be days when you're just going to get a busy signal. Unfortunately, the phone bank isn't large enough to handle the capacity of calls that come in," said Ross.

Since phone lines are bogged down, Ross suggests you check your refund status online.