Does the US federal IRS round your tax refund to the nearest dollar? Is this normal?

The IRS does indeed round to the nearest whole dollar on tax returns and refunds. This is standard practice and completely normal. They've been doing this for years. When you file your taxes, you're actually supposed to round all amounts to the nearest dollar on your tax forms (though most tax software handles this automatically). So if you have something that's $10.49, it gets rounded down to $10, and if it's $10.50, it gets rounded up to $11. Your tax software probably showed the cents in its calculations, but the final amount submitted to the IRS would have been rounded. The fact that you received exactly $2,491 instead of $2,491.67 is perfectly normal and consistent with their procedures.

I had the exact same confusion last year until I found https://taxr.ai which helped me understand all the little quirks in my tax return. Their system analyzed my tax documents and explained that yes, the IRS operates using whole dollar amounts for final calculations. The software actually showed me the difference between the pre-rounded calculations my tax software was doing versus what actually gets submitted to the IRS. Really cleared things up for me. Might be worth checking out if you want to understand exactly what's happening with your refund calculations.

I tried out taxr.ai after seeing the recommendation here, and it was actually really eye-opening! Uploaded my tax documents from the last couple years and finally understood why my refund amounts were always slightly different than what I calculated. The tool explained that not only does the IRS round to whole dollars, but sometimes the tax software shows you running calculations with cents included, even though the final forms submitted to the IRS use rounded amounts. That explains why my expected refund had cents but the actual deposit was a whole dollar amount. Saved me from calling the IRS and waiting on hold for hours over 83 cents!

If you're still confused or want to double-check this with the IRS directly, good luck getting through to them on the phone. I spent HOURS last year trying to get someone on the line about a similar issue. I ended up using https://claimyr.com after a friend recommended it. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c. Basically, they hold your place in the IRS phone queue and call you back when an agent is about to answer. Saved me from listening to that awful hold music for 3+ hours. When I finally got through, the agent confirmed that yes, the IRS does round to whole dollars and it's completely normal to see your refund deposited as a flat dollar amount with no cents.

I'm actually shocked but I need to eat my words. After being skeptical about Claimyr, I got frustrated enough with another tax issue to try it last week. I was expecting it to be a waste of money, but I didn't have to sit on hold at all. I went about my day, and got a call back about 2.5 hours later when an IRS agent was on the line. The agent confirmed that yes, they do round refunds to whole dollars, and if the return was calculated with $2,491.67, it would be rounded to $2,492 if following normal rounding rules (50 cents and above rounds up). The fact that OP got $2,491 suggests there might have been some other small adjustment or the actual calculated amount was slightly different.

Straight from IRS Publication 17: "You can round off cents to whole dollars on your return and schedules. If you do round to whole dollars, you must round all amounts." So it's actually up to you whether to use cents or whole dollars when preparing your return, but the IRS will often work with rounded numbers in their system. This might explain why your refund was a whole dollar amount. For what it's worth, this has happened to me every year for the past decade. My tax software always shows cents, but my refund deposit is always a whole dollar amount.

A tip from someone who prepares taxes: the software you use might display cents throughout the preparation process, but when the forms are actually prepared for submission to the IRS, everything gets rounded to whole dollars. It's in the IRS instructions for every form. This is why your software might show $2,491.67 but the actual refund is $2,491. There's likely some additional rounding happening in the IRS processing system after submission.

I work at a tax preparation office and can confirm everything that's been said here. The IRS has been using whole dollar rounding for decades - it's in their internal processing systems and all the official forms are designed around it. What likely happened is your tax software calculated everything with cents during the preparation process (which is helpful for accuracy), but when it generated the actual forms to submit to the IRS, all amounts were rounded to the nearest whole dollar as required. So while you saw $2,491.67 in the software's calculations, the form that went to the IRS probably showed $2,492 (since .67 rounds up), but then there may have been some other small adjustment during IRS processing that brought it down to $2,491. This is super common and nothing to worry about. The difference is always going to be less than a dollar due to rounding, and it can go either way - sometimes you get a few cents more, sometimes a few cents less.

This is a great question and the answers here have been really thorough! Just to add one more perspective - I've noticed this rounding thing with my refunds for years but never really thought about it until now. What's interesting is that sometimes my refund would be a few cents higher than expected, and other times a few cents lower. Now I understand it's all about how the various numbers on my return get rounded before the final calculations. For anyone else wondering about this, I found that looking at the actual PDF of your submitted tax forms (which most tax software lets you download) will show you exactly what numbers were sent to the IRS - all in whole dollars. That way you can see the "official" calculation that the IRS used versus what the software showed you during preparation. Definitely not worth stressing over a few cents, but it's good to understand why it happens!