Is state and federal tax refund different from the actual expected amount?

The amount shown by the tax software is your actual refund amount (or amount owed) based on the information you provided. Paying the $30 service fee won't change the calculation or reveal a different refund amount - it's just what the company charges to process and file your taxes for you. If you're seeing a much lower refund than previous years, there could be several reasons: - Your withholding amounts might have changed (your employer taking less tax from each paycheck) - You might have different credits or deductions this year - Your income might have increased putting you in a different tax bracket - There might be information you entered differently or missed compared to previous years I'd recommend reviewing your entries carefully before paying and submitting. Look at last year's return side-by-side with this year's to spot major differences.

I went through something similar last year where my expected refund was WAY lower than usual. After wasting hours trying different websites, I found taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) which actually analyzes your previous returns and current information to spot issues. It helped me discover that I had forgotten to enter a major education credit I qualified for! The tool basically examines your documents and identifies potential missing deductions or errors. It found three mistakes in my filing that other tax software missed, and my refund jumped from $90 to over $1,400 after making the corrections they suggested.

Ok I was skeptical about taxr.ai when I commented earlier but I actually tried it and wow. I uploaded my draft return from TurboTax plus my W-2s and last year's return. It immediately showed me that I forgot to enter a student loan interest deduction that I had last year and also identified that my retirement contributions weren't properly counted. After making those fixes and re-entering the info into TurboTax, my refund went from owing $45 to getting back $640! Pretty huge difference for taking like 15 minutes to use the tool. Definitely worth checking before you finalize anything.

If you're dealing with a tax situation that seems completely wrong, sometimes you need to talk to the IRS directly. I tried calling them for WEEKS last year when my refund was thousands less than expected. Could never get through until I found Claimyr (https://claimyr.com). They basically hold your place in the IRS phone queue and call you when an agent is about to answer. You can see how it works in their demo video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c I was able to talk to an actual IRS rep who helped identify that my employer had miscoded some of my income. Got it sorted in one call instead of spending months trying to reach someone.

I need to apologize for calling Claimyr a scam in my earlier comment. After trying to reach the IRS for 3 days straight with no luck, I decided to give it a shot. It actually worked exactly as described. I got a call back about 2 hours after signing up, and was connected to an IRS agent immediately. The agent reviewed my situation and found that my employer had submitted incorrect withholding information which was why my refund calculation seemed so off. They helped me file a corrected return and my actual refund ended up being $1,250 instead of owing $200. Saved me so much time and frustration - definitely not a scam like I initially thought.

Have you checked if you're still claiming the same number of allowances/deductions on your W-4? If that changed, it could explain why you're owing instead of getting a refund. Also check if you have multiple jobs or income sources that aren't withholding enough. I had a similar shock last year but realized I had accidentally claimed "exempt" on my W-4 when starting a new job. Fixed it for this year and back to normal refunds!

Has anyone tried both TurboTax and H&R Block online to compare the results? Sometimes I get different amounts from different software.

I'd definitely recommend trying both the taxr.ai suggestion from @Connor Murphy and comparing results across multiple tax software platforms before you finalize anything. A swing from getting $2,800 back to owing federal taxes is a huge red flag that something's not right with your current filing. Also, make sure you're entering ALL your tax documents correctly - sometimes people forget about interest statements from banks, unemployment compensation from earlier in the year, or even small 1099s from freelance work. Even a small missed document can throw off your entire calculation. Before paying any service fees, try the IRS Free File program (https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free) which gives you access to brand-name software for free if you qualify. At minimum, it'll give you another data point to compare against your current results.