If you are wondering why your tax return is delayed; it has been reported that there are approx. 35M backlogged returns; approx. 16M paper and now 19M electronic returns too. With the pandemic, there has been a shortage of staff, returns are now being held for manual processing for review of stimulus payments and unemployment, printers have failed, semi tucks are being used for storage, and now supposedly the IRS has run out of server space and can only download returns as space becomes available. While the IRS’s auto response is that it takes 6-8 weeks for paper returns and less than three weeks for electronic filings, taxpayers may experience something quite different.
P.S. The IRS is hiring.