TT offers an option of paying for preparing your return from the refund itself. As I explained, by the time we were done with our return and it's complexities, the fee was more than we expected but since we were also getting back more than we expected, we said 'awww eff ' it and decided to just pay the fee that way.
What happens is I fill in my bank info, but the actual bank info on my return when filed is TT's. So when the IRS pays the refund, they pay TT. TT then gets the money that is our return, removes the fees due, and forwards the rest to our account.
So when our refund was deposited via direct deposit it came from TT, not the federal government.
