Can I pay my state taxes from my federal refund?

You can't pay state taxes from your federal refund because the IRS and state tax departments each maintain their own, separate tax collection systems. This means you can't apply your federal refund to pay off your state taxes, nor the other way around.

Likewise, if you're filing more than one state return, you can't use the refund from one state to pay off another state.

You can pay your TurboTax state preparation fees with your federal refund—just not your state tax bill.