There is a glare in the system. I have the same problem and my 2019 return is in Utah Service Center limbo. If your spouse dies BEFORE the filing date, then most likely you filed a joint return since you were married for the tax year you are filing. I.e., spouse dies 3/2/2020, and you are filing 2019. If this happens, then a joint bank account is no longer considered viable. When you check the box saying that your spouse is deceased in the beginning of the program, a paper copy of the 1040 will have written across the top: "Spouses name - deceased <date>". I'm assuming there is away for the electronic version to do the same. If you don't do that, then you might get a letter 12C in the mail asking for the date of death. The IRS checks the status of the SSNs before sending out a check under two names. The death certificate is processed pretty quickly (to stop SSA payments most likely) and the IRS will abort sending the check if a SSN comes up as deceased. It is quite possible that your return has never been fully accepted by the IRS. The best way to check is establish an IRS account and look at the transcripts. You also can not file a 1040X for this problem, at least using TurboTax. The reason for the amendment is written across the top of the tax form where the deceased message would have been. I.e., only one message can be written across the top of the tax form, you can't amend a tax return adding the deceased status because that will create two messages across the top of the tax form: the deceased, and the reason for the amendment. If the death is after the filing date, then in theory a refund would be coming back to a valid joint bank account. This isn't always true because of extensions. Really if your spouse dies almost any time of the year except maybe November and December, the possibility for this problem to come up is present. For the IRS, the problem is that if your spouse dies between the time the return was filed and the time they send a refund, the refund could get rejected by the bank. Most likely they would either send you a notice or a paper check. Then of course you will have to figure out what to do with the paper check that can only be endorsed by one person.
