The Recovery Rebate Credit will not lower your refund or raise your taxes. It is a refundable credit. The credit can only be reduced to zero if you have received all the stimulus payments that you are eligible for.
Here is a link with more information on the Recovery Rebate Credit.
As to the question why your refund is lower this year, that is usually a factor of withholding amounts not keeping up with income.
A way to see this is to compare your income and withholding from your 2019 return to your 2020 return. You should see a corresponding relationship between income and withholding over the years. If your income went up, you should see withholding go up. You could also see income that stays about the same, but withholding went down.
If you notice a disconnect you can work with your employer to enter a new Form W4 to change withholding. Here is a link for a calculator to assist as well.
Another factor is, there may have been some credits in 2019 that you qualified for that you did not in 2020.
You can preview your 2020 return forms in TurboTax Online to compare line by line to your 2019 return.
- Click "Tax Tools" in the left hand menu
- Click "Tools"
- Click "View Tax Summary"
- Click "Preview My 1040" in the left hand menu
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