After taking last week off to mark the swift rise and fall of now-former IRS Commissioner Billy Long, TaxNow’s ERC refund updates return… and the news is as cold as ice. Refunds have slowed to a crawl, while audits and 105C disallowances continue to surge. To add insult to injury, the very person many hoped might breathe life into ERC processing was abruptly shown the door after just two months in charge. As summer wanes, ERC watchers are asking the obvious question: how much worse can it get?
Here’s are the latest processing stats over the past two weeks:
📉📉 After reaching a four-week high of 578 refunds two weeks ago, the bottom fell out, with just 279 refunds processed last week, followed by an even bleaker 240 this week. These two weeks mark the lowest levels since February, fueling fresh doubts about IRS timelines.
📉📈 The average refund amount has seesawed: a three-month high of $209,478 two weeks ago, nearly halved to $116,027 last week, before rebounding to $154,978. The only consolation? A limited but continued trickle of seven-figure checks.
📉📈 Total dollar volume nosedived from $121.0M two weeks ago to just $32.4M last week, with only a modest bounce to $37.2M this week. At this pace, the IRS’s pledge to clear the ERC backlog by year-end looks more like wishful thinking..
Here’s what we’re seeing on IRS enforcement:
1. Billy Long is Long Gone - Billy Long’s tenure as IRS Commissioner ended almost as quickly as it began, with President Trump firing him on August 8, 2025, after less than two months in the role, the shortest stint for any Senate-confirmed commissioner in the agency’s history. Long, a former congressman with little tax administration background, entered office under scrutiny but also with quiet optimism from tax practitioners, many of whom hoped his outsider status and political instincts might accelerate long-delayed ERC refund processing. Instead, his tenure was consumed by controversy, from premature public comments on tax-season outcomes to reported clashes inside the administration over taxpayer data sharing with DHS. His abrupt dismissal leaves Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as acting commissioner, while taxpayers awaiting ERC refunds are left wondering if real relief from the IRS remains just as elusive as ever.
Kenny's Conclusions
The ERC landscape feels like it’s caught in a perfect storm, shrinking refund volumes, swelling audits, and leadership turmoil at the IRS. For taxpayers still waiting on checks, the firing of Billy Long is less about the man himself and more about the vacuum it leaves: no clear champion for ERC processing at a time when one is badly needed. Until the IRS stabilizes its leadership and recommits to meeting its own promises, practitioners will have to prepare for a long, grinding finish to the ERC saga, one where enforcement is running laps around refunds.
Signing off!
Kenny Dettman, CPA
Disclaimer: *𝘋𝘢𝘵𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘹𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 14,000 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘌𝘙𝘊*
