Originally Posted by
JoynerJim
This is totally fraudulent on United's part. The IRS doesn't have my money. United has it. I can understand that they needed to collect the tax when I first made the purchase, but there is absolutely no reason for them to hold on to it now since they no longer have the authority to collect these taxes.
Holding on to it strikes me as unethical at best and criminal at worst.
It is in theory possible that United has already forwarded your taxes collected to the government, so they no longer have it. I am not saying they do daily sweeps, but it is possible.
Until they (the IRS and the airlines) work this out, everybody just has to wait. The IRS has made it very clear they don't want to process refunds. The airlines, except for JetBlue have made it very clear they don't want to process refunds.
Until one of them gives, the consumer is stuck waiting. If the IRS gets around to forcing the airlines to do the refunds, then of course things will be different.