What would cause a huge drop in refund? 2021 income: $23k (W2), $7k (1099). Refund so far: FED ($9k), STATE ($1k). After added unemployment($34k) FED refund now $1.4k.

[3dbobby]

Just looking for speculations.  I have no idea besides either being in a higher tax bracket after adding unemployment or they took out more than %10 in unemployment income.   I'm in ILLINOIS. I know income tax on unemployment is fully taxed (first $10k no longer exempt). But I thought it's like only up to %7 or %10.  My FED refund was red$8k plus.   I filled out my income in order of W2's, 1099's and Unemployment so I didn't do anything out of the ordinary.  I already filled the EIC and Child Tax Credits prior.

[xmasbaby0]

You have not told us how much -- if any--tax was withheld from your W-2(s), what kind of 1099 you have (1099NEC for self-employment? -- or something else? ), how many dependents you claimed, whether you received advance child tax credit payments between July and December, your filing status, etc etc. etc.  And you have not told us if you received the 3rd EIP payment during 2021. 

  If you were seeing that $9000 federal refund before you entered the stimulus money received in 2021, then when you entered the information from letter 6475, the software had to reconcile the amount you received with the amount that may have been showing on that refund monitor.

What you may not realize is that as soon as you began to prepare your tax return, the software was giving you the $1400  per person and it was shown on that "refund monitor" -----but when you entered that you received it already, the software had to reconcile the payment you received,   You cannot get it twice---so it looked to you like you "lost" $1400. per person   You did not lose it---you just cannot receive it twice.

We cannot see your tax return.    Print out your 2020 return and put it side by side with your 2021 return to look for the differences line by line.