irs refund less than expected

[JBuff3]

The IRS refund check was significantly less than my TurboTax return.  The check came without explanation.  How do I find out what the difference is between my TT return and the IRS calcuation? 

What do I do? 

[xmasbaby0]

MY REFUND WAS LESS THAN I EXPECTED

There can be a number of reasons why your refund was less than the amount you expected. First of all, look carefully at your actual tax returns.  There is sometimes confusion about the amount of refund to expect when users misinterpret the “summary” they saw in TurboTax. The amount of your refund is on your tax return.  Federal refund line 20 on Form 1040  State tax forms are all different so we cannot tell you what line to look at on your state form.  BUT it is important to actually LOOK at your tax return forms yourself and see the amounts of your tax refunds and/or tax due.  A lot of confusion would be avoided by doing that.

TurboTax does not receive feedback from the IRS regarding money that was offset from your refund.  If you owed back taxes, child support, student loan debt, etc. you will receive a letter of explanation from the IRS in several weeks.  The WMR site will contain a message regarding your offset.  It is also possible that the IRS caught a mistake you made and reduced your refund.

It is also possible that your state reduced your refund for debts owed in your state—if the state reduced your state refund you will receive a letter from the state.

https://www.irs.gov/uac/tax-refund-offsets-pay-unpaid-debts

 IRS Treasury Offset Program Call Center at 1-800-304-3107

Be aware also that your Federal refund and state refund do NOT come together. Federal and state tax returns are processed by two completely separate entities.  There is no rule as to which one will come first,

Did you choose to have TT fees deducted from your Federal refund?  (Remember that if you did that, you also agreed to an extra refund processing fee of $39.99)

How can I see my TurboTax  fees?   

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/2565973-how-do-i-review-my-fees-in-turbotax-online

https://www.irs.gov/uac/tax-refund-offsets-pay-unpaid-debts

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/refunds/help/what-is-a-refund-offset/00/26301

Reduced Refund     https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc203

[LMID]

May have been due to error in Turbotax.  I received 1,440 less than I expected.  Check how you handled the stimulus payment question.

Best, easiest  most accurate way to find this is go to SEARCH TOPICS-- type in Stimulus, then select Stimulus from the suggestions, take you there.  Took me forever to figure this out.

TurboTax had a major screw up on this section in the early releases.  Looks like it was fixed--but confused me because I got less refund than I expected due to their error.

[Critter-3]

@LMID 

Although I applaud your sense of duty to pass along good information you do NOT need to post  onto older threads.