The IRS typically issues most refunds within 21 days of e-filing, according to IRS.gov’s refund tracking page. For millions of Americans, that window is merely an inconvenience. For Kevin Hensley, it became a month-long financial standoff with real stakes attached to every passing day.
I first heard Kevin’s name on a Tuesday morning in early March, when he called into Money Matters Baltimore, a local talk radio segment on WBAL that covers personal finance issues for working residents. He was calm but pointed — describing a refund that had been sitting in IRS limbo since February. After the segment ended, I tracked down his contact through the station’s producer and called him that afternoon. He picked up on the second ring.
A Business Owner Who Files Early — and Still Waits
Kevin Hensley is 58, runs a small landscaping operation out of Baltimore’s Govans neighborhood, and has been self-employed for eleven years. He employs two part-time workers during peak season and handles his own bookkeeping using QuickBooks. He is not the kind of person who waits until April to file his taxes.
When I sat down with Kevin at a diner near his home on March 14, he pulled out his phone and showed me his IRS Where’s My Refund tracker. It read: “Your return is still being processed.” The date on his e-file confirmation was February 6.
Kevin’s return included Schedule C income from his landscaping business, a home office deduction, and vehicle mileage — a combination that, according to tax professionals, frequently triggers additional IRS review. He had used TurboTax Self-Employed and said his return was accepted within 48 hours. After that, silence.
The Child Support Variable Nobody Talks About
Kevin has been divorced for six years. He has two children — a 17-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old son — and his court-ordered support obligation runs $940 per month. He has never missed a payment, a fact he mentioned twice during our conversation without any apparent pride, just as a statement of record.
His ex-spouse’s situation is more complicated. Kevin told me she remarried in 2022, and while he did not elaborate on her finances, he made clear that the income pressure in his household is entirely self-contained. He pays into the system. He does not receive support from anyone.
That $940 monthly obligation, combined with his own rent of approximately $1,350 and business overhead, means Kevin operates with very little margin in winter months. His landscaping revenue drops sharply from November through March — he estimated gross business income of roughly $11,000 for the entire first quarter of 2025, compared to $28,000 for Q3.
What “Processing” Actually Means — and How Long It Can Last
Kevin checked Where’s My Refund every morning. Some days twice. The status never changed from “Processing” for the first five weeks. No notices. No letters. No phone calls from the IRS.
The IRS’s own guidance, available at IRS newsroom operations updates, notes that returns requiring “special handling” can take 90 to 120 days. Kevin’s situation didn’t hit that threshold — but at week five, he had no way of knowing that.
When Kevin finally called the IRS on March 14 — a call that took 47 minutes of hold time before reaching a representative — he was told his return had been flagged for review related to his vehicle mileage deduction. He had claimed 14,200 business miles, which he documented with a log he keeps in his truck. The IRS representative told him no further action was required from Kevin, and that the review would complete on its own timeline.
Side Hustles as a Pressure Valve
Kevin is not someone who sits still. In the weeks between filing and receiving his refund, he picked up three weekend gigs through a neighbor’s property management company — basic yard cleanups for $180 to $220 each. He also sold two pieces of landscaping equipment he no longer needed, netting $640 on Facebook Marketplace.
That additional income — roughly $1,300 across six weeks — covered one child support payment and kept him from dipping into a small emergency savings account he guards carefully. He described it less as resourcefulness and more as necessity.
He told me he briefly looked into a refund anticipation loan — a product some tax preparers offer that advances the refund amount, typically at high fees. He decided against it after calculating the cost. Many of these products carry effective APRs that can exceed 100% on short-term advances, a point flagged by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in past consumer advisories. Kevin said he had used one about eight years ago and regretted it.
The Refund Arrives — And What Kevin Says He Would Do Differently
The $3,840 hit Kevin’s checking account on April 8. He had set up direct deposit, which the IRS confirms is the fastest delivery method once a refund is approved. He texted me the same afternoon with two words: “It landed.”
When we spoke two days later, he was measured about the whole experience. The money was already partially allocated — $940 toward May’s child support payment held in advance, roughly $1,200 toward spring equipment maintenance, and the remainder held as operating cushion. He did not describe relief so much as the simple resumption of a plan that had been paused for two months.
What stayed with me, reporting this story, was the arithmetic of it. Kevin Hensley did nothing wrong. He filed early, used direct deposit, and had legitimate documentation for every deduction he claimed. The IRS eventually confirmed this by releasing his refund in full with no adjustments. And yet the gap between filing and deposit was 61 days — nearly three times the IRS’s stated standard — during the two most financially thin months of his year.
The system worked, in the narrowest sense. Kevin got his money. But between February 6 and April 8, he had sold equipment, hustled weekend jobs, and done careful arithmetic to make sure he didn’t miss a child support payment he has never missed in six years of making them. That math is invisible in any IRS processing statistic. It was very visible sitting across from him in that diner.
Kevin told me he will file again in early February next year. He does not plan to change that. What he plans to change is his documentation process — monthly mileage summaries instead of one annual reconstruction. Whether that will shorten his processing time in 2026 is something neither of us can know. But it is the one variable in this experience he actually controls.
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