MN Dept. Of Revenue Begins Processing Unemployment Insurance Compensation, PPP Loan Forgiveness

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The Minnesota Department of Revenue has started processing Unemployment Insurance and Payback Protection Program (PPP) refunds that have been delayed due to tax law changes.

Last week, the agency announced that the people who qualify for the relief passed by the legislation earlier this year will begin seeing checks starting Monday.

Staff from the revenue department and Minnesota IT Services have been working to update 2020 tax forms to reflect law changes made in July, as well as develop and build a system that is able to adjust over 540,000 impacted returns.

RELATED: MN Department Of Revenue Will Begin Sending Tax Refunds For PPP Loans And Extra Jobless Aid In Next Few Weeks (July 1)

"We know these refunds are important to those taxpayers who have experienced hardships over the last year and a half," Revenue Commissioner Robert Doty said. "We made the decision to adjust nearly all of these returns on our end so that impacted taxpayers would not need to take the time and resources to file an amended return, which would further delay the refund they're due."

The agency is manually processing about 1,000 individual income tax returns per week to start, with the goal of increasing that to 50,000 returns per week by late October.

"The Department of Revenue issues more than 2.9 million income and property tax refunds every year. We have a process in place, and we are following that process. With taxpayer dollars at stake, we must always find the balance between speed and accuracy," Commissioner Doty said.

Meanwhile, over 2,000 returns impacted by PPP changes filed at the corporate entity level have started to receive refunds, and are expected to continue to go out through September.