 Internal Revenue Service IRS tax news debunking myths about federal tax refunds, but first an attempt at a joke I apologize in advance. The IRS audit was so ruthless they left me ruthless, which caused me to also be ruthless. And I'm sure gonna miss my wife Ruth, but Ruth wants a roof and the IRS audit being ruthless left me ruthless causing me to also be ruthless. I sure hope you find a good roof out there somewhere Ruth. IRS tax tip 2022-49 March 30, 2022. Once taxpayers file their federal tax returns, they're eager for details about their refund. When it comes to refunds, there are several common myths that can mislead taxpayers myth. Calling the IRS tax software provider or a tax professional will provide a more accurate refund date. That's not generally the case because once it's off to the IRS, it's kind of in limbo until it starts being processed in essence on their side. So calling the IRS usually isn't more helpful than the information that you could find basically at irs.gov. They'll basically give you the same kind of information after you wait in the waiting line for calling the IRS, which could be like months at this point in time. They got kind of backed up on the calls over there. The software provider, so you might have done your tax return with software, and you could call the software provider. But all they're really going to be able to do is give you the information generally which you should already have on your end when you process the software, which is that it has been processed, it has been sent in, it has been accepted, and that's basically where it ends. They can basically confirm to the point that basically the IRS has processed the return or has the return so that that's good because that allows you to know that you've sent the return in on time hopefully and given you some verification on that, so you're not going to be subject to any kind of penalties for late filing hopefully on that side. But they can't usually give you more information in terms of when you're actually going to get the refund when the IRS is going to finish processing the return. You got to go to the iriswebsiteiris.gov for example with that. You can call the tax professional. If your tax professional did the tax return, then they're probably have the software and they can look at the software and say, yeah, the software says that it has been accepted by the software company. It's been sent in and possibly accepted by the IRS, but once again that's basically where it stops. How long it will take for the government to process the return and send out the refund is basically on the IRS's end of things. And you could try contacting the IRS, but you're probably not going to get any further than what you'd find on the IRS website at the where's my refund type of tool. And again, it's probably going to cause you more frustration because you're going to end up waiting on hold most likely for a long period of time to get information that's not going to be any more detailed generally than what you could find on the where's my refund tool. So many people think talking to the IRS tax software provider or their tax professional is the best way to find out when they will get their refund. The best way to check the status of a refund is online through where's my refund tool or the IRS to go app. So that's you could check that that's basically you know them providing that information out there. And like I say, if you if you call someone they'll probably and the IRS provider will probably give you the same information. They're basically logging into their where's my refund app on their end at the same time. So you're probably not going to get any more detailed information and you could do it on your phone. I don't have the IRS to go app, but obviously that's the coolest way to do it. You can get the app for the phone and check it out that way. Taxpayers can call the automated refund hotline at 800-829-1954. Now this one should give you pretty much the same information you would think as the where's my refund tool, but it's automated. So hopefully they got someone that actually at least a robot will pick up the phone. Right. It's when actual people need to pick up the phone where they fall a bit short over there at the IRS at this point. So this hotline has the same information as where's my refund and IRS telephone assess assistors. There's no need to call the IRS and where's where's my refund says to do so. So they'll give you some instructions. Maybe there'll be some instances where they're going to tell you to call the IRS. But most of the time, if it's a general refund question, that's the place to go. So myth ordering a tax transcript is a secret way to get a refund date. Doing so will not help taxpayers find out when they will get their refund. So you might have heard this. I guess this has been a myth that's been out there that if you order the transcript, then you'll get the refund date. And they're saying no, where's my refund tells the taxpayer their tax return has been received. And if the IRS has approved or sent the refund myth, where's my refund must be wrong because there's no deposit date yet update to where's my refund on both irs.gov and the IRS to go mobile app are made once a day, usually overnight, even though the IRS issues most refunds within 21 days, it's possible a refund may take longer. So that's just an average. So whenever they say 21 days, I mean, all the, all that can possibly be is an average. So you would think that there's a lot that are less than 21 days and a lot that are over 21 days. And so you got to kind of take an average like that with a pretty large grain of salt because unless you get some more data on any case, if the IRS needs more information to process a tax return, the agency will contact the taxpayer by mail. Taxpayers should also consider the time it takes for the banks to post the refund to the taxpayers account. See, it's the bank's fault. It's the bank's fault. Now, it shouldn't take that long. You would think the postage account, but any people waiting for a refund in the mail should plan for the time it takes a check to arrive myth. Where's my refund must be wrong because a refund amount is less than expected. There are several factors that could cause a tax refund to be less than expected. The IRS will mail the taxpayer a letter of explanation if these adjustments are made. So if they see something that they think is wrong, they'll make the adjustment typically sends you a letter and then they might send you the amount of the refund that they adjusted, most likely lowered. And then you can either accept or not accept. You can argue at that point in time and try to get the rest of the refund or or accept it. So that's the general process, which is kind of nice actually, because at least they give, I mean, they might actually give you the refund that they calculate is the proper refund instead of holding the whole thing until you get the problem resolved. So in any case, some taxpayers may also receive a letter from the Department of Treasury Bureau of Fiscal Services if their refund was reduced to offset certain financial obligations before calling checkwares by refund or wait for the letter to understand why the change was made. This can help taxpayers know how to respond if necessary myth. Getting a refund this year means there's no need to adjust withholdings for 2022. So to help avoid a surprise next year, taxpayers should make changes now to prepare for next year. So obviously we've had, we've gone over some substantial changes in both the tax law and in individuals tax circumstances in terms of their job and life structure and so on over the last couple of years. So it's quite likely that you can't really do what you normally do with the tax code. Usually the tax code is really complex, but at least it's somewhat stable year over year and people's life structures change over time. There's big events like marriage and moving and whatnot, which cause substantial changes in people's tax structure as well. But usually those are not the outliers like the big events that make those big changes that you got to adjust for. Obviously in the last few years, we've had huge changes in tax law as well as huge changes in people's working structure and so on. So that would mean that your withholdings, you've got to plan a lot more for the withholdings because now you've got the tax law this year that's going to be possibly different to the tax law next year and income structures this year different than the income structures next year. So you're going to have to basically make some projections to try to figure out how much withholdings you need for the current year. And if you're switching jobs from like, from like a W2 situation, you're doing more gig work, for example, or something like that. Then you got to take that into consideration for your estimates in terms of how much you're going to pay. And your goal is to pay generally a little bit more than you think your actual tax will be to avoid penalties and interest. And usually you could do that basically by basing it on the prior year, your prior year taxes. But that's a lot more difficult to do when the tax code is substantially changing. We could have substantial changes to refundable credits. For example, you know, child tax credits and earned income tax credits and recovery rebate credits and stuff like that. So those, those could be substantially different. So, so you're going to, you're going to have to make the estimate. So pretty much everybody would probably be better off doing an estimate. And they got some tools online to help with that. So one way to do this is to adjust their withholding with their employee or the tax withholding estimator. Here's the tool really to do a projection properly these days. You kind of need tax software to do it because the tax code is complicated. It keeps on changing and people's people's actual conditions are changing more rapidly. And this tool online is basically getting to be kind of like a software kind of tool to help you to make a projection. So that will help you to make your estimated payments. So in any case, and honestly, a lot of people need help with this kind of stuff right now, I would think. So, I mean, just helping people out with their estimated payments could be like, you know, people could probably, you know, make a business out of that, really, at this point in time with all the changes that are in place of this. But in any case, the tax withholding estimator tool can help taxpayers determine if their employer is withholding the right amount, taxpayers to experience a life event like marriage, divorce, birth of a child and adoption or are no longer able to claim a person on as a dependent or encouraged to check their withholding. Taxpayers can use the results from the tax withholding estimator to complete and submit a new form W-4 employees withholding certificate to their employer as soon as possible. Withholding takes place throughout the year. So it's better to take these steps as soon as possible. So there's a link to that tool and other stuff here. There'll be a link to this in the description.