O P I N I O N
THE SOAPBOX
Stand up. Speak up. It’s your turn.
Before I delve into the massive tax filing mistake that I wasn’t aware I was making until it was far to late, first let me apologize. I am not a writer, I have never submitted a letter to the editor, Soapbox or anything beyond a rare post to social media. So my grammer, spelling, and the like will likely be sub-par, if not terrible.
As with previous years, I waited patiently for all the required documents, read many tax advice articles, filed earlier than I ever have before (January 23, 2021), filed online, with direct deposit, double checking everything, and paying for the audit protection, just in case.
The IRS accepted our return on February 10, 2021. I thought I hade done everything right. That is, until the IRS2Go app version of “Wheres my refund” website, finally updated to “Approved” on March 1. But instead of saying a date that our refund would be deposited by, it stated our refund check would be MAILED. With no additional information as to why.
Thinking it HAD to be a mistake, I pulled up our return and checked for a third time, and verified that I did include the correct direct deposit information. I had. I then reviewed the FAQs, verifying that none of the situations listed applied to us. I then turned to Google, with very little luck. After reading article after article I finally found a blog that referenced the three-year deposit rule. After some more searching on Google, I found a link to a page on the IRS web site, verifying that the IRS will only make a maximum of three tax refund deposits into a single bank account or prepaid debit card.
Again I thought, this doesn’t apply to us, we have only direct deposited our tax refund into this account twice, I checked our previous returns to verify this. After MORE searching on Google, and coming up with NOTHING. It came to me. Did the COVID relief EIP (Economic Impact Payments) count towards the three deposit rule? Again, back to Google, this time with ZERO results. So I checked our bank records, and sure enough, one of the two EIP deposits WAS listed as a tax refund!
Everything I had read stated that the stimulus money would NOT affect tax refunds. I thought I had done my research and filed everything just the right way to maximize our chances of getting our refund as early as possible. But here we are six weeks later still waiting.
Now knowing all this, I have been thinking: If the House passes the new relief bill today, than the ONLY people who will recieve it as a direct deposit, will be the ones who do not normally file taxes with direct deposit, or chose to use a different account this! Anyone who filed with direct deposit, using the same bank account for the past two tax filing seasons, would have also recieved the EIP as a direct deposit into the same bank account, like we did, and would now NOT be able to have this tax seasons refund direct deposited, unless they for any reason chose to open a new bank account during the pandemic. With most banks now by-appointment-only, it makes it nearly impossible for many couples, especially with children, to coordinate work schedules, child care and available bank appointments.
This also leaves me wondering, What will happen if the house passes the new stimulus package? Will we again be waiting an unknown amount of time for a check, or a prepaid debit card? Will we be able to update our banking info?
I feel people NEED to know this information, and I am utterly shocked that I have not found a single article including any of it! This may very well end up causing many Americans, who have been financially struggling through the pandemic, to suffer that much longer, simply due to lack of information. And why did no one at the IRS think of this, or notify the public, so that we could make informed decisions? I understand this information is available to the public, but wouldn’t it make EVERYONES life easier if we were all made aware of it?
Beg to differ? Agree to disagree? Send your thoughtful prose on topics of general interest to carolrobidoux@manchesterinklink.com, subject line, The Soapbox, or you can use our handy free DIY feature to upload directly into our system.
Mica Coleman is a reader from Manchester.
