TurboTax sold my return to Santa Barbara Tax

[stephenmerlino]

Now that my return has been held for two weeks by Santa Barbara Tax, who surely are soaking up the interest, I will never again use Turbo Tax.

[DoninGA]

TurboTax did not sell your tax return to anybody.

You requested to have the TurboTax account fees deducted from the federal tax refund instead of paying those fees with a credit or debit card.  This was a totally optional service that you chose and confirmed as your choice on several separate web pages when completing your tax return using the TurboTax tax preparation software.  See Screenshots

When you requested to have the TurboTax account fees deducted from your federal tax refund, the IRS will send the refund to a third party processor to have the fees deducted.  The third party processor will then deduct the fees and attempt to direct deposit the remaining refund balance into the account that you entered on your tax return.

For the status of your tax refund you will need to contact the third party processor, Santa Barbara Tax Product Group, using their website - https://cisc.sbtpg.com/index.aspx

Tax Products Group Contact Information - https://help.sbtpg.com/hc/en-us/articles/230084587-Contact-Information

Other tax preparation software companies use the same or similar third party processor or their own wholly owned subsidiary to have their fees deducted from a federal tax refund if the user of the software requests this totally optional service.