Here's how long it will take to get your tax refund in 2022

Three in four Americans receive an annual tax refund from the IRS, which often is a family's biggest check of the year. But with this tax season now in progress, taxpayers could see a repeat of last year's snarls in processing, when more than 30 million taxpayers had their returns — and refunds — held up by the IRS. 

Treasury Department officials warned in January that this year's tax season will be a challenge with the IRS starting to process returns on January 24. That's largely due to the IRS' sizable backlog of returns from 2021. As of December 31, the agency had 6 million unprocessed individual returns — a significant reduction from a backlog of 30 million in May, but far higher than the 1 million unprocessed returns that is more typical around the start of tax season.