2019 Tax Refund Schedule: When The IRS Will Pay You Back
Every year, millions of taxpayers ask one question above all: When's my tax refund going to get here? In the past, the IRS was kind enough to provide a schedule that gave U.S. workers some guidance on when they could expect to get their hard-earned money back from the federal government. Yet over time, those firm schedules gave way to a more general set of guidelines.
As a result, it's impossible to provide a solid timetable for when to expect your tax refund. But the IRS does give taxpayers a sense of how long it takes for it to process returns, and it has established a track record of getting refunds back fairly quickly after completing its internal processing. The table below -- based on on that information -- offers reasonable estimates, albeit ones that won't necessarily hold true in your particular case.
The IRS has always been careful to urge taxpayers not to rely on any tax refund schedule in planning their finances. All too often, people count on having their refund by a given date, and take out short-term loans with the expectation that they'll be able to pay them back promptly once it arrives. If the payout is delayed, that causes even bigger financial problems.
The government shutdown has caused even more complications this year. Even the information that the IRS usually provides on refunds hasn't yet been updated for the new tax year -- the guidelines available still refer back to the refund period from 2018. And although the head of the IRS recently reassured taxpayers that refunds would go out even if the shutdown continued, the agency's past advice not to make plans based on speculative refund dates is still sound, given that your assumptions can overlook factors affecting both specific returns and the processing of refunds broadly.
Using historical trends to build an estimated 2019 tax refund schedule
The IRS has often said that 90% of refunds get to taxpayers within 21 days of their return being processed. That doesn't mean you'll avoid being among the 10% whose refund doesn't arrive within that time frame. But it's a reasonable starting point for coming up with a set of realistic assumptions to predict your tax refund schedule.

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