North Carolina is running out of cash. Of course, they’re not the first state to report economic woes: California has been making news for months with its deficit and New Jersey has just announced lower than expected revenues. With cuts at the federal level and revenues down due to increased layoffs, many states are facing increasing budget shortages.
What’s a state to do? Delay income tax refunds. North Carolina has announced that it will delay income tax refunds by about four weeks as they scramble to find cash to give to taxpayers. These four weeks are on top of the regular processing time. In fact, the NC state Revenue Department is warning that some returns may take as long as 12 weeks to process. Twelve weeks!
Secretary of Revenue Ken Lay assures the state that “everyone who is due a refund will get a refund.” You might just have to wait for it. And since NC state law requires that interest starts running in June for delayed refunds, the state is hustling to get out as many refunds as possible, but it’s proving to be difficult: tax collections in NC are down by about $1 billion from last year.
So, since revenues are down and cash is scarce, taxpayers in NC who are owed refunds will just have to wait. But there is a lesson to be learned here, folks: you should not rely on your tax refund. With a little planning, you can have your money in your wallet all year long instead of waiting anxiously for your refund check. Remember, refunds are interest-free loans to the government. You can do better!
I pay my taxes all year ontime, then I pay to have my taxes filled , I have waited 6 weeks now for a refund it just does not seem fair