Thousands of Rhode Island income-tax refunds are being delayed longer than previously reported because of state cash-flow problems.
Overall, the state has delayed payment of about 53,000 individual income-tax refunds — totaling about $36.3 million — to make sure it has enough money to pay off state borrowings that come due in June, said Paul L. Dion, chief of the state Office of Revenue Analysis.
When the issue first arose earlier this month, state officials said they were delaying payment of refunds by about three weeks after the returns were processed. As of Tuesday, however, the delay had grown to between four and six weeks, state officials acknowledged.
Normally, when a tax return is processed, it takes the state several days to issue a refund on a return that was filed electronically, a week or so for a return that was filed on paper, state Tax Administrator David M. Sullivan said.
The state Division of Taxation has received numerous complaints from taxpayers who have called the agency looking for their refunds, Sullivan acknowledged. “Our call volume is up,” he said. Meanwhile, several legislators on Tuesday introduced a bill (H 8167) that would force the state to pay interest sooner than required on delayed refunds. One of the bill’s sponsors, state Rep. John J. Loughlin II, R-Tiverton, said, “It’s a fundamental issue of fairness.” Refunds represent “money that belongs to the people who earned it,” and the state should pay them promptly, said Loughlin, a candidate for Congress.
Seizing people's money through withholding and refusing to give it back?
Now that's "progressive"!
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