Where's my tax refund missing $700? Federal deposit less than approved amount

This actually happens more often than you'd think. The most common reason for a discrepancy between your expected refund and what gets deposited is an adjustment made by the IRS after processing your return. A few possibilities: 1) There might be a math error they corrected on your return. 2) You may have claimed a credit or deduction they determined you weren't eligible for. 3) They might have adjusted your withholding amount based on information they received from employers. 4) Sometimes there are offsets for past-due obligations you might not be aware of (like old state taxes or federal agency debts). The good news is that the IRS is required to send you a notice explaining any changes they made to your refund amount. This notice typically arrives within 2-3 weeks after the adjusted refund is issued. Look for a letter with an explanation for the $700 difference.

I had something similar happen last year and it drove me crazy trying to figure it out by calling the IRS - was on hold for HOURS. Finally I found taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) which analyzed my tax documents and found that the IRS had actually adjusted my education credit amount without telling me. Their analysis tool compared my filed return with what the IRS processed and pinpointed exactly where the $842 discrepancy came from. Saved me tons of time versus waiting for the letter and then trying to decipher the IRS jargon.

Just wanted to update after trying taxr.ai that the person above recommended. I was skeptical about sharing my documents but their security seemed solid and I was desperate to figure out what happened to my missing $655. Turns out the IRS applied an offset for an old utility bill from 5 years ago when I moved out of my college apartment! I had completely forgotten about it and it somehow made its way to the Treasury Offset Program. The report showed exactly which agency took the money and gave me their contact information. Super helpful and saved me weeks of confusion and phone calls!

If you want to talk to an actual human at the IRS (nearly impossible otherwise), try Claimyr.com (https://claimyr.com). They have this service that gets you through to an IRS agent usually within 15 minutes instead of waiting on hold for hours. I watched their demo video (https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c) and was skeptical but it actually worked! They basically navigate the IRS phone tree for you and call you when they have an agent on the line. The agent I spoke to was able to pull up my file and tell me exactly why my refund was different than expected.

I have to eat my words about Claimyr being a scam. After my refund was short by $912 and I couldn't get through to the IRS for two weeks, I broke down and tried it. Got connected to an IRS agent in 17 minutes, and she explained that they had applied an offset for an unpaid federal student loan from 2010 that I thought had been forgiven during the pandemic! The agent was able to give me the loan servicer's contact info so I could sort it out. Definitely worth it just to avoid the hold music and get a straight answer instead of waiting 4-6 weeks for a letter.

Did you file with a tax preparer or software? Sometimes they deduct their fees from your refund rather than charging you upfront, which could explain some of the missing money. When I used [popular tax software] last year, they took $139 for federal filing, state filing, and processing fees directly from my refund. Check your tax prep agreement to see if that might be part of what happened.

Has anyone checked if their refund is getting split into multiple deposits? My sister thought her refund was short last year but it turned out the IRS sent it in two separate transactions about 3 days apart. No explanation why but both eventually showed up.