“Delays in DC Tax Refunds”

Photo by PoPville flickr user Phil

“Dear PoPville,

I just wanted to let you know about a situation I discovered today when I was finally able to speak with a live person in the DC Taxpayer Service Center.

Our tax preparer filed our US federal and DC local tax returns electronically on 27 March 2015.
We were owed refunds from both US and DC. The fed IRS credited our account an amazing five business days later on 3 April.

We still haven’t received the DC tax refund as of today. When we would go online at the
DC income tax return status website, we to the same reply for a month:

“Your return has been received and your refund is being processed. Please check back in a few days.”

Every time I called the contact number, the wait was over 15 minutes. Finally today i did wait, and the nice and knowledgeable woman I spoke with quickly came back with an answer.

As I had no W2 form and my spouse did and the return was filed under my Social Security Number, the customer service representative said that the District was unable to confirm that my spouse had had withheld any DC taxes. This in spite of our return having both our SSNs on it!. She said DC has an old 1999 tracking system that is unable to track withholding like that and that the primary taxpayer on a joint DC return must have a W2 showing DC tax withheld.

When I asked her what would have happened if I had not finally got through by phone, she said the return would have just been held in “pending.” DC does not notify the taxpayer that anything is wrong or missing in a case like this.

She asked me to fax or email her a copy of my spouse’s W2 which she would add to the file so the return can be processed and the refund issued. I emailed the copy of the W2 minutes after speaking with her.

Now to see if that actually happens! And how long that takes.

So if anyone is waiting for a while for a refund. Call the Taxpayer Service Number on their website.”