Will IRS deduct my excess advance premium tax credit in 2019 from my 2020 joint tax refund?

[susanh1911]

Back in 2020, IRS notified me to send 1095A and 8962 for 2019 tax year. I submitted them (via fax) to IRS and since then my 2019 return is still processing. Based on my calculation, i need to repay $3.22 for the excess APTC to IRS as the money i owed was $3.22 more than my 2019 refund. I tried multiple attempts to make the payment to avoid further confusion and reached out to IRS many times, IRS only responded to wait for their review and they do not have full capacity to process all the returns during COVID. So now i just filed my 2020 tax jointly with my spouse through TurboTax as I got married in 2020 (while my 2019 tax return is still processing - paper filed as"single") and I am wondering whether the "still processing 2019 tax return" and the $3.22 I might owe to IRS in 2019 would trouble/delay getting our 2020 tax refunds. I did not get any stimulus last year due to this delay so me and my spouse will be getting close to $6000 from our 2020tax returns. Therefore, we are really trying that $3.22 repayment in 2019 will not unnecessarily delay getting our 2020 refunds. Please advise.  Thank you so much.

[AmyC]

• If the IRS thinks you owe taxes, they will hold up your current refund until they are satisfied.
• If the IRS has not gotten that far with 2019, they will process your 2020 and later send you a bill.

The IRS is pretty far behind in handling 2019 returns.

[susanh1911]

Thank you so much for your answer. Could you please advise what I can do to get our 2020 refunds without any unnecessary delays/hold (if $3.22 i owed in 2019 might be an issue)? I would be really frustrated if $3.22 would mess around with getting our $6000 refunds for 2020. We really can't afford to wait another year of processing to get our refund. I also have been trying to pay that$ 3.22 since last year but it never went through and only see the 2019 return is still processing  :( 

[DawnC · Accepted solution]

There is nothing you can do to speed up the processing of the 2020 return, unfortunately.  They will process it separately from your 2019 return, so the $3.22 balance owed should NOT affect the processing time of your 2020 return.   Worst case is that they deduct the $3 from this year's refund.   

However, because the APTC repayment was waived for 2020, it is unlikely that it will cause any hold up on this year's return.   The best way to make a payment to the IRS is on the IRS website.  It is worth the time to set up an account there so you can have access to your IRS account information and be able to make payments quickly and efficiently.  

The IRS issues refunds, not TurboTax.  The APTC issue is what caused the IRS to hold up your 2019 return and you will have to contact them to find out more about the processing of that return.   Fortunately, that will not be an issue with your 2020 tax return.  

When to contact the IRS

What makes refunds late?