Finance admit that IRS refunds in complex cases take longer

Office Mário Centeno explains that the repayment process depends not only on the date of submission of the declaration .

The Ministry of Finance ensures that the tax authorities are trying to pay the IRS refunds from the 25th day that the taxpayer made the delivery of the statement, but recognizes that in more complex cases the processing may take longer.

The Left Bloc (BE) reached "many requests for clarification" posed by taxpayers who delivered the statement in the first days of April and until a few weeks waiting, worried that the refund of the money fall into your bank account. The avalanche of doubt led to Mrs Mariana Mortágua to confront the Ministry of Finance with these cases to know why there would be processes "paralyzed."

The doubts came to the table of the chief of staff Mario Centeno Minister André Moz Caldas, which, in its reply to the Parliament points out that the Government and the Tax Authority and Customs are determined to make the repayments "in the shortest time" even if the IRS code determines that they can be paid until 31 August.

Finance crease that the commitment to start the payment of refunds "from the 25th day" materialized, clarifying that the period of 20 to 25 days that has been taken as indicative "was not - as in previous years - one medium-term reference for the payment "but before the deadline for the start of this procedure.

But if the deadlines are indicative, the reality is not the same for everyone. There is a reason: "Sometimes, settlements with more complex rules take longer to be reimbursed." It is this fact that, according to the ministry, "explains that the temporal order of processing of declarations and in particular the refunds has no direct correspondence with the order of delivery of statements." This year, for the first time, married taxpayers could choose between deliver the declaration together or separately. The rule became the separate taxation; if a couple (or those who live in union) want to be taxed jointly must specify this option.On the first day of delivery there were problems on the site of the simulator of Finance, which misled couples simulating your tax situation between the delivery of the joint statement or separately and, when receiving the refund, they realized that amount received did not match the simulation.

Finances are the complexity of the rules the explanation for the situations described by BE. Frequently they reached the parliamentary group, reminded the ministry Mariana Mortágua, concern taxpayers who delivered the statement in the first five days of the delivery period (ie between 1 and 5 April) and not seeing the process move forward, they felt "wronged" by realizing that others who delivered the statement later had already been reimbursed. "Their anxiety has been aggravated by the lack of information provided by the tax authority as to the reasons which have led to faster or slower in the abovementioned process and the importance of the chronological order of submission of statements."

To reinforce the idea that there has been no problems, the Finance have to BE a few numbers on the money already returned to taxpayers. Data which have already been updated by the ministry point to 2,264,785 tax returns processed by May 27, over 883 statements than in the same comparable period of 2015. The second delivery phase would end by 31 May. Four days earlier, the total amount of repayments stood "of the 827 million euros, an increase of 160 million (+ 24%) over the same period."