1) You will get an additional federal income tax refund for the unemployment exclusion if all of the following are true.
- You reported unemployment benefits as income on your 2020 tax return, on Schedule 1 line 7.
- You did not get the unemployment exclusion on the 2020 tax return that you filed. The unemployment exclusion would appear as a negative amount on Schedule 1 line 8, with the abbreviation UCE on the dotted line to the left of the amount.
- Your tax on Form 1040 line 16 is not zero.
- Your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), not including unemployment, is less than $150,000.
If all four of those conditions are true, The IRS will recalculate your tax return and send you an additional refund.
The IRS is still sending out refunds for the unemployment exclusion. They expect to continue through the summer. Summer ends September 22. Of course, that was just an estimate. It could end up taking longer than they expected. There is no way to tell when you will get your refund.
2) DO NOT amend your tax return. The IRS has clearly said that you should not amend unless the exclusion makes you eligible for a new credit that is not already on your tax return.
3) TurboTax does not get any information from the IRS about your additional refund for the unemployment exclusion. If you open your tax return in TurboTax you might see that TurboTax has recalculated the return to include the unemployment exclusion. But that has nothing to do with what the IRS is doing. It’s just a calculation that TurboTax makes.
Form 1040 lines 25b and 25d have nothing to do with the refund for the unemployment exclusion.
For more information see the following IRS announcements and FAQ.
IRS to recalculate taxes on unemployment benefits; refunds to start in May
IRS begins correcting tax returns for unemployment compensation income exclusion
IRS continues unemployment compensation adjustments, prepares another 1.5 million refunds
2020 Unemployment Compensation Exclusion FAQs
