When will I get my 2010 California tax refund?
If you were counting on an early California state tax refund by e-filing your California tax return early, you can forget about it. Plan on waiting two months, if not longer, if you believe the information in the Franchise Tax Board’s tax refund status website. Don’t believe it when it says it takes 10 business days. It will eventually change to 8 weeks according to many other early tax filers.
The money won’t be coming anytime soon. It doesn’t matter if you picked direct deposit or check in the mail. You’ll probably need to hit the pawn shop, payday loan, or a bank in order to pay those bills this month. Those tax refund anticipation loans offered by H&R Block and TurboTax may look pretty good right now.
Even worse, you won’t get an California state IOU. That may be a moot point, because most banks may refuse to take those California IOUs this time around. Lots of banks stopped taking them after a week or two in 2009. Back in the early 1990s when CA issued IOUs, banks gladly took them. Not anymore.
All of this is according to the San Jose Mercury News on January 22, 2010.
This is NOT a 2009 article, when we had John Chaing actually issue IOUs.
California controller: State will run out of cash before April
By Denis C. Theriault
dtheriault@mercurynews.com
Posted: 01/22/2010 05:13:27 PM PST
Updated: 01/22/2010 09:12:00 PM PST
SACRAMENTO — State Controller John Chiang issued a stern warning Friday about California’s cash reserves, telling legislative leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger they must act on nearly $9 billion in budget cuts the governor is seeking by March — or the state will run out of cash to pay its bills.
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To that end, Chiang is calling for an additional $2 billion in cash-flow “solutions.” Looking at previous cash crunches, that could mean some payments, like income tax refunds, would be delayed for a few weeks to keep the cushion intact.
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The bottom line on California Tax Refunds for 2010:
This action by Chiang means tax refunds, welfare payments, college aid, aid to for the disabled, and other payments will be delayed by at least 30 days or longer. On the FTB tax refund status website, it is displaying a processing time of 8 weeks. If you were expecting to pay bills with a CA tax refund, it’s time to find other ways to get the cash fast.