Officials at the Iowa Department of Revenue say they will ask state lawmakers to approve longer delays in mailing out tax refunds without paying interest to the taxpayer. The Department announced this week it will lay off 35 workers, so delays in processing tax returns are likely.
Administrator Roger Stirler says the department wants more time to send out refund checks without having to pay interest to the taxpayer:
“We currently have 30 days to get those refunds out without interest, so that makes it June 1. So, we would ask for another 30 days,” Stirler said. It’s unclear, at this point, how much the state might save in interest.
“We don’t have a current estimate for what the dollar impact would be, because it’s all based on what the dollar amount of refunds would be,” Stirler said. “But, we’ll be working on getting a better estimate of that as we get closer to the legislative session.” Lawmakers turned down a similar request last year. Stirler says in addition to the layoffs, the department will eliminate temp work and overtime pay to comply with the 10% across-the-board cut in state government spending.