More than one million taxpayers are facing weeks-long delays in receiving their tax refunds due to IRS efforts to wean the government off paper checks.
The tax agency announced earlier this year that, at the direction of a March executive order, it is phasing out paper checks and pushing taxpayers to use direct deposit to receive their refunds, with limited exceptions.
Paper checks have increasingly been vulnerable to fraud, and the federal government says that electronic payments are faster and cheaper.
Although most taxpayers already use direct deposit to get their refunds, millions of Americans still asked for a check from the IRS last tax year.
So far, the IRS has sent notices to nearly 1.5 million taxpayers asking them to add information for direct deposit or another form of electronic payment like a payment app, according to Reps. Danny Davis, D-Ill., and Terri Sewell, D-Ala., who have been pressing the IRS for information on the process. These taxpayers are facing potential refund delays of over two months.
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