This may go in MPSIMS but there’s a question here. And the question is, is there even the slightest chance that the IRS didn’t make a mistake and I get to keep this money?
I expected a $2300 refund, and got a $6100 refund instead.
Would the IRS of its own initiative correct an error, even if the error had been in its own favor? Or would they instead have mailed me a notice concerning the error instead and asked me to re-file?
If they do correct errors, then I guess it’s just posisble that I missed $4000 somehow. That seems extremely unlikely though, so I’m just setting this money aside and pretending it’s not there. Where I’m putting it, it will draw interest. Question: do I get to keep the interest somehow?
Anyway, do I call the IRS directly, or should I talk to a third party?
(I’m on the phone on hold with the IRS right now, so I guess I need answers fast. )
When I did my taxes this year, I’m also getting a $6000 refund. I used online TurboTax so maybe you did yours manually and missed something? It’s the first refund I’ve gotten since the early 1980s.
I figure it’s because the Democrats are back in power.
Wow, checking the TurboTax estimator, it claims I should be getting a $7000 refund!
This is incomprehensible to me. TMI: It’s almost half of what we had in income last year. Also, I can not see how I could have made that large a mistake.
Yes, the IRS can change your refund if they spot an error.
A few years ago, I got a smaller refund than I expected. I called the IRS and spoke with a very nice lady who went over my tax return with me and figured out that the January quarterly tax payment I had used in my calculations was from the wrong year. No penalty.
Yes. I’ve had the IRS sending me unexpected money when I underreported one of my quarterly payments to them (somehow I made an error of something on the scale of $50-$100). I didn’t need to refile or anything, they just sent me the difference. Of course, this isn’t a $4000 difference, though.
If the refund is almost half of your income last year, then I’m not surprised by the increase at all. Earned Income Credit (Sch EIC) can be worth more than $4,000 and peaks between $16,000 and $20,000 in income. Additional Child Tax Credit (form 8812) can also give you back up to $1,000 per child in addition.
There’s also Sch M for $400/$800 (single/married) that many people overlook.
I almost feel like going back and doing everything manually again just to make everything match up in my mind.
Is that Sch M only mentioned in an “other” line on the 1040 or something?
ETA: Nope, there it is right there on line 63. I think my eyes must have glossed through it just seeing the word “retiree” and thinking it doesn’t apply to me.
Alright. Let this be a lesson to me.
ETAA: And now in this thread I’ve pretty much revealed that last year my family kind of mooched off the taxes many of you guys paid. We really appreciate it (seriously) and it has allowed us to remain productive contributors to society in the long run. But I know that there are those here who will disapprove… which I understand…
IMHO, if you’re paying taxes and filing tax returns honestly, you’re not mooching. It’s the ones who are not paying taxes and/or lying on their tax returns who are mooching.
You’ll probably get a letter from the IRS in a few weeks explaining why they corrected your return, and what the additional refund came from. Don’t worry about it until then. Actually, don’t worry about it at all, but when you get the letter all the speculation will end.
You might want to see if you want to amend the previous years returns. I think there’s some period of time (maybe 3 years?) in which you can correct errors, so perhaps you’re owed some returns if you’ve consistently made the same mistakes year after year.
I’m trying not ruin this nice thread with politics, but it absolutely is because the Democrats are back in power. A large part of the stimulus bill passed after Obama became president was in the form of tax cuts that are now giving people big refunds.
In the interest of not getting political, the reason they included so much of the stimulus in the form of tax reductions is because they were trying to appeal to Republicans to vote for it, although they didn’t anyway.
My understanding is that the tax refunds in the Stimulus was dolled out in the form of reduced payroll tax withholdings, so in theory it shouldn’t lead to a big refund (which is a better deal for tax-payers, since you see more of the money sooner, though it may not feel like it since you don’t see it all at once).
Granted if you don’t pay pay-roll taxes for whatever reason, you will see it as a lump sum in your tax refund.
It was actually a combination of payroll tax reductions and various tax credits. Very few people got all of the tax reductions, but over 90% of the country got something. The combination of not taxing the first $2400 of unemployment, the $400 tax credit, and a couple of other things means I was able to make my house payments this month. Probably not next month, but maybe I will have a job by then.
I just popped in to say that I would like Lok to do my taxes. I used TurboTax and end up owing about $1300 in addition to the withholding my wife and I already paid. This is in addition to the $800ish I still owe from 2008. I would really appreciate a $4000 error in our favor.
And I voted for the Democrats. (And would again, too.)
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