IRS will send interest payments on tax refunds to 14 million taxpayers

The IRS will pay interest to roughly 14 million taxpayers on refunds they received after April 15, the agency announced on Tuesday.

About 13.9 million individual U.S. taxpayers who filed their 2019 taxes by July 15 are set to receive interest payments on their refunds, the IRS said in a bulletin. The average interest payment is roughly $18, the agency said. Any interest payment above $10 will be taxable income for the 2020 filing year.

The IRS said roughly 12 million taxpayers will receive interest payments through direct deposit to the same bank accounts used for their 2019 refunds. The remaining taxpayers will receive the interest payments through a check.

The IRS announced in June that taxpayers receiving refunds for 2019 taxes would be paid interest on refunds issued after April 15 to account for the three-month delay of the annual filing deadline. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin pushed Tax Day to July 15 from the usual April 15 deadline because of the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.