I just received a check in the mail from the US Treasury for $150 and some change (I know: champagne problems).
A few months ago, when I did my taxes, I found that I owed them $122 and some change, and mailed off a check. I’m guessing that I must have calculated something incorrectly, and overpaid, so they sent me the balance.
What I’m wondering is: how do I figure out what I did wrong? Ideally, I want to avoid making the same mistake next year. I’m tempted to call up one of the IRS helplines and ask, but I’m also afraid of drawing any IRS attention to myself in any way at all.
My taxes are really not that complicated. I have a single W2, and a handful of interest and divident 1099s. I have some capital losses to offset a bit of income, but other than that I take the standard deduction, etc. I’m at a loss as to how I could have miscalculated by $150.
I can’t remember the timing, but the IRS notifies you of the error (including what you did wrong) either before they send the check or in the same envelope.
I once received a couple $k from some research company I’d never heard of. Called the company named on the check and they thanked me–a bunch of their blanks had been stolen. There was some kind of phishing scam involved that, had I deposited the check, would have compromised my bank account #.
We got an income tax adjustment this year in the same way. The notification explaining it came a day later, in a separate envelope. :smack: Basically we forgot to claim an economic stimulus-related tax credit. I’ve heard from a few other people that had the same thing happen this year, so maybe that’s the case for the OP also.
I got my normal refund this way (despite requesting the normal direct deposit), and the letter explaining it came the next day. The explanation was that amounts beyond a certain threshold are only sent via check (but no explanation for why).
I had filed an amended return for last year at the same time I filed this year’s return (while I was filling out this year’s I realized I had neglected to claim some deductions last year). According to my calculations I was due $90 but this week I received a check for $93.35, with no explanation enclosed. I’m pretty sure the IRS doesn’t pay interest on excess taxes paid, which is the only reason I can think of for the difference.
Depending on how you did your taxes, you could also try plugging your numbers into another crunching mechanism (TurboTax vs TaxAct, online vs desktop-hosted, vs paper forms and calculators) and see if anything jumps out at you. Usually the various tools come pretty close but maybe you answered A when you should have answered B somewhere.