Is there any estimate on when the IRS will issue additional refund for the 2020 Unemployment tax break? I filed in February 2021, electronically, no issues

[NCperson · Accepted solution]

@jessi-kadlec - this is from the IRS website,

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-operations-during-covid-19-mission-critical-functions-continue#coll...

Status of Unemployment Compensation Exclusion Corrections: The IRS continues to review tax year 2020 returns and process corrections for taxpayers who paid taxes on unemployment compensation, to exclude the compensation from income if eligible. To date, the IRS has issued over 11.9 million refunds totaling $14.6 billion. Some taxpayers will receive refunds, while others will have the overpayment applied to taxes due or other debts. The IRS will mail a letter to affected taxpayers to inform them of the corrections, generally within 30 days from when the corrections were completed. See the 2020 Unemployment Compensation Exclusion FAQs for more information, including details on whether filing an amended return is needed.

Frankly, and there was anothr post on this today, if it were me, I would attempt to get through via phone to the IRS to try to undetstand "what is going on"; it's been 18 months.   

If your tax return was 'simple' then this shouldn't be a problem. "simple" would be a) someone who filed single or b) married - joint where the unemployment was under $10,200.  in both cases it's easy to determine the $10,200 limit per tax payer.  

the 'difficult' returns are those where the unemployment income exceeded $10,200 and it was a married- joint return.  The IRS doesn't know how that unemployment income breaks down between the spouses as it's not submitted as part of the tax return.  EACH spouse is eligible for a $10,200 reduction, but the IRS can't easily figure out if the amount submitted is for one spouse or both as each has a separate $10,200 eligibility. 

if you decide to call and find anything out, please post...... doesn't make sense that 18 months later there are still folks waiting for resolution. 

[rjs]

Are you sure you qualify for the unemployment exclusion? You will only get an additional refund for the unemployment exclusion if all of the following are true.

• You reported unemployment benefits as income on your 2020 tax return, on Schedule 1 line 7.
• You did not get the unemployment exclusion on the 2020 tax return that you filed. The unemployment exclusion would appear as a negative amount on Schedule 1 line 8, with the abbreviation UCE on the dotted line to the left of the amount. If you filed in February 2021 you will meet this requirement, because the law that created the exclusion wasn't signed until March.
• Your tax on Form 1040 line 16 is not zero.
• Your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), not including unemployment, is less than $150,000. In other words, Form 1040 line 11 minus Schedule 1 line 7 is less than $150,000.

[jessi-kadlec]

Yes, I am 100% sure I meet these criteria. TurboTax was even awesome enough to crunch the numbers in the updated 1040 to show the refund I should have gotten, as further validation. 

[jessi-kadlec]

Filed single but the unemployment exceeded $10,200, so maybe that's holding it up. But it looks like TurboTax crunched the numbers for me in the updated 1040, so not impossible. Thanks for the detailed reply!