First the Refund-O-Meter is only correct once all your income and expenses have been entered and the program is fully operational. With each entry of income or expenses the meter will continue to vary as the program recalculates the return with each step you take. If this annoys you then turn off the meter until the end.
Next ... the program interview flow is poorly designed and it will give you a false refund total early in the interview. The program gives you 100% of the CTC and the third stimulus credit once you have completed the MY INFO tab early in the interview and much later in the deductions & Credits tab you are asked how much of these credits you got in advance and then the credits are adjusted for the advance payments which will show as a reduced refund amount or an increase in the balance due.
