I filed our 2025 tax return by mail around April 2, 2025. I'm old fashioned. I still do my taxes by hand, with the help of a spreadsheet, do the PDF fill in forms (an upgrade from writing in by hand before 2024), and mailing it in via snail mail.
I recall in the past, the IRS would show that it was received relatively fast, but take a while to process it and send a refund. This year, I checked after 2, 3 and 4 weeks and there was no acknowledgement of receiving our tax return. However, in week 5, Where's My Refund showed in had been received and surprise, 2 days later, it had been processed and the refund was issued via ACH.
E-file returns are acknowledged after with 24 hours of filing and I guessing refund are issued within a few days. First, it e-file, I need to purchase a tax prep software, which I'm too cheap to do. Second, I prefer using a spreadsheet since I can easily see the internal changes caused by different inputs, instead of just seeing the final answer.
My state already allows direct e-filing on their website, which I used to input the numbers from my spreadsheet. The refund was received in about 2 weeks. I wish the Federal government would use a similar free system for e-filing.
Anyway, due to the OBBB bill tax changes, our refund was Yuge since I didn't adjust our withholding until October, which resulted in overpaying our Federal taxes for 2025 by a lot. For 2026, I have adjusted our withholding to match the expected amount of our 2026 Federal income tax. Hopefully, that will keep our refund closer to zero for 2026.
This is not financial, tax, nor tax filing advice. Please consult a professional advisor.
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