Eagerly awaiting your state tax return? Not so fast, says Kentucky.

If you filed your taxes fast and electronically, congrats. Your federal refund might even now be winging its way toward electronic deposit in your account.

The Internal Revenue Service began accepting returns Jan. 29 and has already paid some early-filing taxpayers.

But whoa, Nelly on that state return.

The Kentucky revenue department will begin paying out return money no later than Feb. 26, officials said.

Why? “Because of tax refund fraud, we have strengthened our fraud detection tools,” the Kentucky Department of Revenue announced in a news release.

What that means, according to Todd Renner, executive director of the Kentucky office of income taxation, is that the state is scrutinizing early returns closely to see whether it can pick out patterns of possible fraud.

Fraud has bedeviled state returns in recent years, and not just in Kentucky. The state is trying to spot patterns of fraud early, meaning it wants “some real data to test our anti-fraud measures,” revenue department spokesman Glen Waldrop said.

The department gets that data from early filers, enabling them to spot potential trouble spots before the rush in late February, March and April. “We look for certain keys … on your return that make it look like it wasn’t you that filed them. … We will see certain patterns in data. We can go back and find that they are generated by the same source. The goal is not to aggravate the taxpayer.”

If you can, have your return sent to a bank account, Renner said. Refunds earmarked for a branded debit card — and not your bank’s debit card — are a favored tool for fraud because the cards are tough to track.

The delay isn’t extreme given the potential for fraud, Renner said, and the state knows that many taxpayers count on their annual return money and want it quickly.

“What you will lose in that circumstance (fraud) is a lot of time and aggravation,” Renner said. “(But) the taxpayers of the commonwealth would be out more. The thief would get your first refund, and then you would get your refund.”

About 88 percent of Kentucky taxpayers now file electronically, Renner said. The portion of electronic corporate returns doubled from 20 percent to 40 percent in 2017, and the state aims for 60 percent this year. Otherwise, printed returns are sent to a Louisville center, where they are opened and scanned and turned into an electronic file.

The e-filed returns with direct deposit take the least time overall, at two to three weeks. And paper returns? Be prepared to wait eight to 12 weeks for the state to open, sort, scan and review your return. The Kentucky revenue department received 1.9 million individual returns in 2017, with 635 received in January 2017 and 711,453 in February.

You can check the status of your refund online. The site requires use of a Social Security number and the exact refund amount in whole dollars.

This story was originally published January 30, 2018 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Eagerly awaiting your state tax return? Not so fast, says Kentucky.."