IRS Delays Could Stall Oregon Tax Refunds Until April Unless You File Electronically

Oregon’s Department of Revenue urged taxpayers wanting their share of Oregon’s $1.41 billion kicker as soon as possible to file tax returns via E-filing, but there may still be an IRS delay until after mid-February.

File Taxes In Oregon By E-File

Taxpayers may be keen to get their tax refund this year due to the kicker, the refundable tax credit that either reduces the amount of tax owed or increases the amount of a taxpayer’s refund. Oregon will begin processing electronically-filed returns the same day as the IRS- Monday, January 26.

Taxpayers who e-file their returns and request a refund via direct deposit receive it on average within 2 weeks. In contrast, those who file paper returns experience a significantly lengthier wait due to processing delays.

The department will begin issuing refunds for e-filed returns on February 15. For paper-filed returns, refunds will not start being issued until early April, as the IRS was late in providing the necessary tax forms and information to the Oregon Department of Revenue. As a result, the state’s processing of paper-filed Oregon personal income tax returns can’t begin until the end of March.

The IRS Delay has pushed back paper forms and checks that are processed at the Department of Revenue’s processing center, where a front-end system captures the data, but workers have to tell the system which data to capture and where to find it on each page of the return.

Chris Wytoski, manager of the Department of Revenue’s processing center, said, “Until the federal returns were finalized, we weren’t able to finalize Oregon’s returns and, ultimately, configure our system.”

On the delay for Oregon taxpayers filing paper returns this year, Megan Denison, administrator of the Personal Tax and Compliance Division at the Department of Revenue, said, “There’s a simple solution. File electronically.”

Oregon E-Filed Tax Refunds Delay

While electronic filing rates have been steadily increasing over the last decade, Oregon expects to receive more than 2.2 million personal income tax returns for the 2025 tax year. Approximately 95 percent are expected to be filed electronically, as this is the fastest and easiest way to get a refund.

But if you claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit or Additional Child Tax Credit, the IRS is legally required to hold the entire federal refund- not just the part that’s related to the credit you claimed on your tax return. You may experience a further delay, but it is still faster than paper filing.

By law, the IRS can’t issue EITC or ACTC refunds before mid-February, so Oregon taxpayers may want to take this into account when they are wondering Where’s My Refund?