@racheboorma88 wrote:
That kind of makes sense. I'm in the same situation. I have the path hold for eitc and ctc. I paid the $25 to receive my refund 5 days early. My estimated refund day on TurboTax says February 7th. That is way before the path date. When should I expect to receive my refund? I feel like this was really sneaky of TurboTax to offer this option to people without explaining. Also I paid my fees with my refund, so my refund first gets sent to stpg to pay my fees before I receive my refund. I smell a lawsuit coming on for false representation. If they don't give us back our $25 that we paid, is TurboTax just going to say that or refund was 5 days earlier than it would have been. How do we prove otherwise?
Any date turbotax gives you is meaningless. Probably based on a general assumption that most refunds are paid in 3 weeks. Use the IRS "Where's my refund" web site to track the progress of your tax refund. That's where the 5 day advance notice comes from. In most cases (I can't promise all cases) the IRS provides advance notice. Essentially, your tax return can be approved for refund on any particular day, but refunds are only paid once or twice a week on a particular schedule. The IRS used to publish a calendar for tax professionals that said something like, "refunds approved between 2/1 and 2/5 will be paid on 2/10; refunds approved from 2/6-2/10 will be paid on 2/15", and so on. I don't know if that still exists, but you should see something on "Where's my refund" once the IRS officially opens e-filing.
The $25 "5-day early" offer states in the fine print that this is based on the IRS providing 5 days advance notice, but that all payment of refunds is solely up to the IRS. The offer also states that if it is not possible to pay the refund 5 days early, you will not be charged the $25. I don't know if that will be automatic or if you will have to make a claim.
