And no, your assumption is wrong. No one you paid money to help prepare your taxes and advance you a refund is going off the where's my refund information. Here's how the up to 5 days early thing works: the IRS sends notifications to Banks overnight on a daily basis telling the banks to expect direct deposits from 0 to 5 days in the future. The funds will paid deposited at 12:01 a.m. on those dates. The people you paid money to, as well as many banks for free, will give you that money as soon as they get that initial notification, and not wait for the funds to actually be deposited because hey, the money is coming from the treasury department and if anybody's reliable, they are. I kid you but that's really kind of how it works.
