2020 Tax Refund

[BT56]

I still have not received my 2020 refunded. I called the IRS on 3/12/21 and they told me that my extimated tax payment crossed paths with my filing and that i would get it later in the year - I never did. 

How do I account for that on my 2021 tax return?

[jtax]

If asked to have it refunded (i.e. paid to you directly) then you do not account for a Federal refund. ( a state could be different if you itemized and deducted state taxes paid in the prior year).

If you asked for it to be applied to your 2021 taxes in lieu of making estimated taxes, what to do is a harder question. In that case I would probably suggest extending the return and waiting until October to see if they credit it properly. Or just file assuming it was credited properly. The IRS will have many of these situations to deal with.

I would suggest creating an IRS account (see https://www.irs.gov/payments/your-online-account ) to get a better view of what the IRS has on record for you.

There is also a special site (and app) for checking on refunds (not credits applied to next year's estimated taxes). That is here: https://www.irs.gov/refunds

[Cynthiad66]

Should not affect the 2020 return unless your 2021 estimated payments are being refunded to you for some reason.

2020 and 2021 returns are total separate so it should not affect the 2021 filing.

IRS has a serious backlog of returns for 2020 and working towards eliminating that backlog soon.  Continue to work with the IRS on that back log but proceed to file 2021.