The Internal Revenue Service recently got a migraine over late refunds worth millions. An IRS computer automatically froze 152 tax refunds that exceeded $10 million each to review them, but the IRS didn't move fast enough, resulting in nearly $63 million in additional interest the government had to pay.

The problem was outlined in a report released last week by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration. Of the accounts frozen, 49 payments, totaling $620 million, were not issued in a timely fashion, according to the IG.

It's not the first time that a slow IRS refund process has cost the government money. Nextgov.com reports that in September 1999 and March 2002, the same thing happened involving high-dollar refunds.

"In this follow-up review, we found fewer accounts with the large-dollar refund freeze," the auditor noted. "Nevertheless, the amount of interest the IRS continues to owe taxpayers with improperly frozen refunds is substantial because it has yet to implement our recommendations from the prior reviews."

For more on the IRS payment excesses:
- see this Nextgov.com article

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