Just Hope The Government Stays Open If You Want Your Tax Refund On Time
No, folks, you're not experiencing a mean case of déjà vu, the government might actually be heading towards yet another shutdown. If President Donald Trump and leading Democrats can't come to some sort of agreement on border security funding by Feb. 15, the federal government will once again hang its out of office sign. The only difference now is that we're even deeper into tax season, and so you might be wondering will you get your tax refund if the government shuts down? Just hope the government stays open.
The partial government shutdown that began on Dec. 22 after Trump failed to snag over $5 billion in funding for his border security proposal — which includes a wall between the U.S. and Mexico — ended on Jan. 25, only a few days before tax filing season began on Jan. 28. Sure one shutdown is behind us, but you know what they say: when one door closes, another shutdown begins. Another deadline to fund the government is right around the corner, and if Trump and the Democrats don't reach some sort of compromise by Feb. 15 then the government will head straight back into shutdown mode and your refund could very well be in jeopardy.
On Jan. 7, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a statement that they're "committed to ensuring taxpayers receive their refunds," despite the shutdown. To help follow through on that, the Trump administration ordered around 30,000 furloughed IRS employees to go back to work without pay to process refunds. However, per The Washington Post, many of those employees decided to skip work — as some of the nearly 800,000 unpaid federal employees did during the earlier shutdown. So if the government shuts down again, the same could happen and you wouldn't want to hold your breath for that refund. Elite Daily reached out to the IRS for comment on whether taxpayers can expect their refunds on time if the government shuts down again, but did not immediately hear back.
The idea of another shutdown is still up in the air, though. In a Feb. 7 interview with Politico, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said, “There will not be another shutdown. No, it’s not going to happen.” Pelosi was confident that there will be a bipartisan effort to keep the government open, but the point of contention that led to the last shutdown is still very present: Trump's border wall is off the table, according to Politico.
While the wall might be a nonstarter for Pelosi, it's still being championed by Trump, who said from the Oval Office on Jan. 31 that he won't "waste [his] time" reading a proposal that doesn't include a wall, according to Bloomberg. He said,
On Feb. 15th, the committee will come back and if they don’t have a wall, I don’t even want to waste my time reading what they have because it’s a waste of time. Because the only thing that works for security and safety for our country is a wall.
The country might have gotten out of one shutdown, but the standstill on the wall is still very much there. So basically, I wouldn't get too comfortable with this whole working government thing just yet.
