I Bonds refund not working

[ikedogson]

I have a refund of ~$6,300. I selected treasury bonds for my refund, and opted for the max amount of $5,000 for the bonds. Now, I am getting this message for my refund on the IRS website:

You requested that part or all of your refund be used for a US Savings Bond(s) purchase. However, we could not honor your request for the savings bond purchase due to one or more of the following reasons:

• The bond amount you claimed was not in a multiple of $50 or it exceeded $5,000.

This is false- I requested 5,000$ in bonds. I have now received about $3,400 deposited into my savings account as a direct deposit for my refund, which is not only not what I wanted, it's only about 60% of my refund. What gives?

[RobertB4444]

It sounds like the IRS has adjusted your refund for some reason and adjusted it below the $5000 you requested in bonds so it could not make the purchase that you asked for.  There are a lot of reasons that the IRS could adjust your refund - if you left something off of your return, if there is a problem with something that you entered, etc. - and you should go log in to your account on the IRS website and take a look at their version of the 2022 return and see what they have changed.  You should also be receiving a letter in the mail that will tell you what they changed in the next couple of weeks.

@ikedogson 

[ikedogson]

Ah, okay, thanks for the help.

So is there a way for me to change out the refund I got direct-deposited in exchange for I bonds in the same amount?

Seems a little ridiculous that they adjusted my refund down, then decided my bond refund was higher than the new amount and just deposited the cash (with no interest of course) in my account rather than give the refund as bonds as I requested.

Am I SOL? The entire reason I got money withheld from my paychecks was to receive a refund as I bonds.

edit: Also I'm still unclear as to why exactly my refund was adjusted down...is there a way to find this out?

Thank you

[AmyC]

The IRS number for payments is 800-316-6541 - can help with bonds and payments

The Treasury Offset program phone is 800-304-3107 - if they took part of your refund.