Finance ERC Blog

What Is the ERC Refund Processing Time?

It’s bad enough when a client or a vendor ghosts you. No one wants to get ghosted by the IRS. But that’s what it feels like if you’re a small business owner who has applied for the Employee Retention Credit (ERC) refund. You fill out all your paperwork for your Employee Retention Credit. You mail it to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS.) And then you wait. And you wait. And you wait some more. Months go by, and no check arrives. You start to wonder if it got lost in the mail. Or maybe you didn’t qualify for the Employee Retention Credit after all, and they haven’t bothered to tell you? It can feel like you’re getting ghosted by your own government. But the most likely scenario is you did nothing wrong. Waiting months, even more than a year, has gotten increasingly common. Most small business owners are reporting wait times of 10-12 months before they get their Employee Retention Credit refund. Some have even waited as long as 18 months to get their refund check.

What’s Causing the ERC Refund Delays?

Generally, people who file an individual tax return and get a refund only have to wait a month or two before getting their check. So, why are we experiencing such long ERC refund delays? A few different things are responsible for the longer ERC refund processing time. The first is that the IRS, like everyone else these days, is short-staffed. Fewer people available to work means getting everything done takes longer. ERC refund delays have been made worse by a flood of applications for the Employee Retention Credit. While the ERC remained one of the best-kept secrets of the CARES Act for the first couple of years, more people have become aware of it and applied for their refunds. It could be because the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP loans) ended, or because accountants started alerting their clients to a tax credit for which they should be applying, or both. Either way, the fact is the IRS has seen a dramatic increase in the number of businesses filing for the Employee Retention Credit, and that’s part of what’s causing the longer wait times. Fewer people available to get through a bigger pile of work means longer ERC refund delays.

ERC Refund Processing Time Snail Delivering Money

Waiting months, or even more than a year for your ERC check from the IRS is increasingly common. Get paid upfront for your ERC. Apply here to see if you qualify for an advance of your Employee Retention Credit Refund.

Can the IRS Speed Up Their Processing Time?

The extremely long ERC refund delays have become so prominent and created so much stress for business owners that it’s caught the attention of U.S. Senator Mark R. Warner of Virginia. As a result, Warner has been putting pressure on the IRS to speed up the ERC refund processing time. The IRS has committed to doubling the amount of ERC refunds it processes in a day (from 20,000/day to 40,000/day) with a promise to prioritize older applications. But with staffing shortages continuing to be a problem and more people filing their ERC applications every day, there has been no word as to how the IRS plans to fulfill that promise. Let’s hope it’s not just another case of telling the boss what they want to hear, only to continue doing business as usual.

How to Get Your ERC Refund Faster

Even if the IRS does manage to increase its ERC refund processing speed, it could still take months for them to get to your application if you file today. They still have a backlog to get through, with more applications getting filed all the time. Having worked with small businesses for decades, we know how important cash flow is to the health of a business, and we know you can’t afford to wait months to get your ERC refund. That’s why we built a business that can put money in your bank today while we wait for the IRS. We have too much respect for you to ghost you. We’re the ones who will get on the phone with you and make sure you have what you need now so you can get back to business as usual. If you need your ERC refund now, you can apply here to see if you qualify for an advance of your Employee Retention Credit Refund.

All content and information in this post is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute professional advice.

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