What am I being charged an extra $35 on top of the $35 filing fee for? There's no explanation....

[tboates]

I was told $35 to file, we only have standard deductions... I go to finalize and it says $70 in fees, what the heck?

[RBBrittain · Accepted solution]

The extra is probably the $34.99 "refund processing fee" for deducting the fee from your refund. To avoid this extra fee, pay with your credit or debit card.

[aletamthompson]

I files with turbo the last few years and each year I was not charged the processing fee. I also never paid with my debit or credit card

[RBBrittain]

@aletamthompson You may not have had any fees to pay because your return was free (Federal Free Edition or Freedom Edition). The "refund processing fee" is for the third-party processing required to deduct fees from your refund; that's not needed if there's no fees to pay OR you paid with a credit or debit card.

[mylolee]

So now Turbo Tax has chosen to charge me to file my return and an additional fee to "process my refund". Really. Why dont you just advertise $70 to pay for processing the return AND processing the refund.  Only the gov could find a way to justify this. I guess this is why Turbotax AND the IRS encourage direct deposit vs paper check. And you can claim you do not charge to process the refund, but the only service that can be used via Turbotax for the option the IRS AND TURBOTAX STRESS AS THE "Most accurate method of getting your refund without the worry of a lost refund".  Turbotax charges this fee so yes, Turbotax, you are indeed charging me a fee to use the processing company YOU have chosen me to use.  I chose direct deposit because both Turbotax and the IRS HIGHLY suggested this option.  Its all like charging for the purchase of a new tire with an additional fee for the stem to inflate the tire, which is worthless without the stem.  Yes, I can pay Turbotax to prepare my returns, but I should NEVER, under any circumstance, have to pay to get my refund, especially if I am utilizing the option you have stressed as the most accurate way to get my refund. The option to "wait weeks for a refund check vs direct deposit" was alluded to once during the filing process and "direct deposit vs refund check" was hammered in my head to the point I was concerned if I didnt choose direct deposit Id be at risk of not receiving my refund.I like Turbotax, and this year it seems you have made changes that made filing even easier. And my future purchases wont matter to Turbotax, but if you are planning on sugar coating these hidden fees like we are all too ignorant to figure out we are paying more for Turbotax and IRS's convenience then hello H&R Block 2017.  And my "free federal filing" was never free which is just insulting

[SweetieJean]

The extra charge is to have the TT fees deducted from your. It is not a direct deposit fee. You could have paid up front and avoided he extra $34.99

[macuser_22]

The "convenience fee" for paying from your refund is not a TurboTax fee but a separate bank fee for making an unsecured loan to you to pay the TurboTax fees from your refund.  That fee is from the Santa Barbara Tax Products Group (SBTPG)

 Unsecured loan rates can be high because if you do not actually get the refund (the IRS denies it or there is a tax offset levied) then it can be difficult or impossible for the bank to get it's money back so the high fees reflect the risk involved.

[thedanibear]

The first two years I files through TT, they took their fee of $43 something out of my refund then put my refund on a Netspend card and did not charge me a processing fee. But, this year I have them direct deposit it into my bank and TT takes $83.51 out of my refund, which is bullshit. If I would have known that there was an extra $40 fee for depositing my refund into my bank, I would have used the Netspend card again since I was only getting $268 back before TT took their fees out.

[RBBrittain]

@thedanibear I'm not aware of the additional SBTPG fee (I think it went up this year) being waived in the past for NetSpend users. The way to avoid it is as SweetieJean said above: Pay the TurboTax fees up front; then your entire refund will go straight to your bank.