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If your return is accepted, you are supposed to get the advance within minutes.   Your actual income tax refund will be held until mid-February by the IRS if you are getting additional child tax credit or earned income credit.

Thanks Dave, but this is information that is nonexistent and irrelevant for these examples. Who remembers how much they originally paid for clothes that they donate and have collected over multiple years?  And there is no such thing as an appraised value of stock. There’s the current value on the date that you donate it and there’s the original purchase price. This is going require me to use a CPA (or possibly fill out paper forms myself) instead of using TurboTax so Intuit is going start losing business.

The IRS does not start processing returns until January 26, 2026.  In the meantime, all efiled returns are kept on TurboTax servers until the IRS pulls them on or after January 26, except for a few test returns pulled early by the IRS.   If you recently efiled, your efile status at the Tax Home should say "pending", unless your return has been one of the very few pulled early by the IRS.

The IRS has not even begun to accept/reject 2025 returns yet, so you are trying to track a 2025 refund too soon.   Watch your emails----when the return is accepted or rejected---sometime after the IRS opens up--you will get an email telling you if your e-file was accepted.   Once it is accepted, give it a few days and then begin to use the refund site to track it.   The IRS will begin to accept/reject returns on January 26.

By "low income" you have not provided any specific information.   In order to get refundable child-related credits you must have income from working.  Did you work in 2025?     Make sure you have entered your child as a dependent in My Info, and that you have entered the child's Social Security number.    Careful— do not say that your child’s SSN is not valid for employment.  If your child was born in 2025 make sure you said he lived with you the whole year.  There is an oddly worded question that asks if the child paid over half their own support.  Say NO to that question.   Have you entered income from working in 2025?  If not,  you will not receive an income tax refund based on having dependent children.     The maximum amount of the child tax credit is now $2200 per child; the refundable “additional child tax credit” amount is $1700.   In order to get that credit, you have to have income from working.   Take the amount you earned from working.   Subtract $2500.   Multiply the rest by 15%.  That is the additional child tax credit per child that you can get—- up to the maximum of $1700 per child.   If the amount you earned from working was low, you will not get the full $1700 per child.    If your child is older than 16 at the end of 2025, you do not get the CTC.  But you may still get the non-refundable $500 credit for other dependents instead.   https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/taxation/child-tax-credit/L2lNhfGDl_US_en_US?uid=m68dfq2u   https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/taxation/additional-child-tax-credit/L6xFeMFEf_US_en_US?uid=lqnuygah https://www.irs.gov/help/ita/does-my-childdependent-qualify-for-the-child-tax-credit-or-the-credit-for-other-dependents     And for the Earned Income Credit—-   https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/tax-credits-deductions/qualifications-earned-income-credit-eic-eitc/L7w4BFP32_US_en_US?uid=m62rmz09   https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/earned-income-tax-credit/use-the-eitc-assistant   https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p596.pdf   Look at your 2025 Form 1040 to see the child-related credits you received   PREVIEW 1040 https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/tax-return/preview-turbotax-online-return-filing/L77WCkvnu_US_en_US?uid=m681fkhr   Child Tax Credit line 19 Credit for Other Dependents line 19 Earned Income Credit line 27 Additional Child Tax Credit line 28  

No, it is not your imagination. TurboTax has significantly increased its reporting requirements for the 2025 tax year. This change is driven by stricter IRS enforcement of Form 8283 requirements and new rules under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) passed in 2025.   The IRS is essentially using tax software to "force" taxpayers to provide information that was technically always required by law but often ignored in the past.

For both accounts, you will report foreign income after converting to USD on the same line as US forms when possible.  For example, bank interest earned can be reported on Sch B.  Wage income from outside the US will be reported as foreign earned income. Under personal income, select less common income and choose Foreign Earned Income.     If you are claiming the foreign income exclusion, use Form 2555. I don't think you are excluding income since you are asking about the foreign tax credit. The foreign tax credit is claimed by filing form 1116. See Claiming the Foreign Tax Credit with Form 1116 - TurboTax   Please reply back with any further questions about specific incomes and we can better tailor the answer for you. For more on converting under IRS rules: Foreign Currency and Currency Exchange Rates - IRS Yearly Average Currency Exchange Rates - IRS  

Since the RSU's vested while you were abroad, you will need to allocate your W2 between US and non-US sources since the W2 may report the full amount and not separate it into US-sourced income.    You will file a 1040 NR that is US-sourced income. For California, you would only report California-sourced income for the period of time you lived in California. In determining your allocation, you will use work days and not years or months. The formula in determining your US-sourced income is total number of of work days divided by the total work days in the vesting period.    Why is this important? When you file your California return, you will need to attach a statement showing the math on how you determined how many working days you worked while a California resident. California is strict about using working days and not months or years. It must be a precise calculation.    No, it isn't exempt. You are responsible for reporting your US income and California income when you were a resident of both jurisdictions.      

and note Intuit doesn't regard these pre-paid online versions as refundable   https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/intuit-refunds/request-refund-turbotax-product/L834M6uyW_US_en_US   TurboTax Online purchased from an authorized retailer Starting December 2025, select retailers will sell TurboTax Online products. Please note that these products don't come with a 60-day satisfaction guarantee and are considered non-refundable by Intuit.  For returns or concerns regarding your purchase, contact the retailer directly.

Hi Dawn, I am using the desktop version of TurboTax. Yes, the charitable contribution section in federal deductions. I have done this many times before, but I’ve never had it asking me all these different questions. Even though I know I need to complete form 8283, it’s asking me for the original purchase value (in addition to value at time of donation) of clothes and household items that I’m donating. It’s never required that information before. Also in another instance where I’m donating stock and I put the current.and purchase values, it’s asking me for the appraised value along with the appraiser’s name and address. It has never asked for this type of information before. It’s requiring much more information that is not available than it ever required previously.