Federal Tax return was too much $$$ ?

[The Iron Giant]

Just got my federal tax return direct deposit and its approximately $800 more than what I filed for and expected.

I suppose its possible I made an error on the return and they caught it, but how can I be sure what the reason is for the larger refund?

I'm not complaining, but I don't want to get in trouble either if they refunded me extra money by mistake.

 

[Halbleib1]

If you did not claim the making work pay tax credit on your return that may be why your tax return came back higher. We are getting an extra 800 from this credit. We file married filing jointly. The credit is less for those filing seperate. Also if you had income from unemployment the first 2400 is not taxable income. So if you did not deduct that out of your gross income that could also account for some of the extra money.

 

[pyrxtc]

If you filed married/jointly then it was probably the making work pay thing.

 

[The Iron Giant]

We did file as married/jointly... but I thought that the Make Work Pay credit was an adjustment my employer made in my withholding and it was spread throughout the past year?

Thanks for the replies

 

[mgroshans]

That is what is delaying a lot of tax returns, so the irs told me. It is schedule M- making work pay credit. Mine was delayed a week b/c of it, but was deposited today. The rep told me, ours was thrown into the errors department b/c of it- even though i claimed it. We didn't do anything wrong. Our refund was exactly as turbo tax calculated it to be. All the irs reps kept telling me is: "schedule M is throwing 1000's of tax returns to the errors department"

 

[Cheshire Figment]

You should receive a separate notice in the mail explaining why the refund was different than expected. If you do not receive such a notice in about a week, call the IRS at 800-TAX-1040 and the person you talk to should be able to look up your account and see why the adjustment was made.

 

[The Iron Giant]

Awesome... thanks for all your helpful replies - as usual

 

[tzolkin]

I was confused about the Making Work Pay credit and wasn't sure if we were supposed to get it or not. I spent a while researching before finishing my taxes.

If it's an $800 difference and you didn't include the Making Work Pay on your taxes, I'm sure that's what it is.

 

[lulubelle6188]

This happened to me last year. We got $600 more than expected. We were worried but we got a letter a couple of weeks later stating why. I forget now but it said if we didn't owe anything we didn't have anything else to do but it we owed we had a number to call. Congrats on the extra!
Tiffany

 

[The Iron Giant]

I checked the paper copy of my return vs. the amount deposited today and its exactly $800 different.

So I think you guys are right and it is the Make Work Pay credit.

Thanks for solving the mystery

 

[BellaBaby]

We did file as married/jointly... but I thought that the Make Work Pay credit was an adjustment my employer made in my withholding and it was spread throughout the past year?

Thanks for the replies

I thought this too. We filed married, filing jointly as well. I know we didn't file for this. Can someone explain?

TIA!!

 

[Illuminations_Rocks]

It WAS an adjustment your employer took throughout the year. But, in order for it to actually be a credit, you get that $800 you WOULD have had taken out of your paycheck, taken as a credit on your taxes. So it's like you paid that $800. If you had previously had your withholdings to zero out, you would owe $800 without taking the credit, since you had $20 less a week taken out. Once you get the credit, voila, it would be zeroed out again.

I am not a tax preparer, I was just confused as all heck when I did my taxes until I finally figured it out!

 

[Halbleib1]

We did file as married/jointly... but I thought that the Make Work Pay credit was an adjustment my employer made in my withholding and it was spread throughout the past year?

Thanks for the replies

Even though you received it in your paycheck you still had to fill in that part on the form. They needed to make sure that everyone got back what was coming to them. Some did not have enough or any withheld from their paychecks and so they have some if not all of it coming in their returns. You might have gotten back the whole 800 because you were already paying in too much to begin with so adjusting your withholding fixed part of the problem but didn't really give you any of the making work pay money. For example: We claim 5 throughout the year but still get back a tax return after paying what tax we owe because we could claim a higher number throughout the year we just choose not to. If we would have adjusted for the making work pay say and claimed 6 we still would not have been receiving the making work pay money even though we would have seen more money in our paychecks because we had up to 11 or 12 that we could have claimed throughout the year. Hope this makes sense to you.

 

[Halbleib1]

It WAS an adjustment your employer took throughout the year. But, in order for it to actually be a credit, you get that $800 you WOULD have had taken out of your paycheck, taken as a credit on your taxes. So it's like you paid that $800. If you had previously had your withholdings to zero out, you would owe $800 without taking the credit, since you had $20 less a week taken out. Once you get the credit, voila, it would be zeroed out again.

I am not a tax preparer, I was just confused as all heck when I did my taxes until I finally figured it out!

Thank you. You explained it better than I could. LOL I am not a tax preparer either. I do our own taxes and when she said about receiving an extra 800.00 I was pretty sure it was from this credit. I was surprised myself at how they worked it out for the form. The instructions did not explain this as well as they could have though.

 

[The Iron Giant]

It WAS an adjustment your employer took throughout the year. But, in order for it to actually be a credit, you get that $800 you WOULD have had taken out of your paycheck, taken as a credit on your taxes. So it's like you paid that $800. If you had previously had your withholdings to zero out, you would owe $800 without taking the credit, since you had $20 less a week taken out. Once you get the credit, voila, it would be zeroed out again.

I am not a tax preparer, I was just confused as all heck when I did my taxes until I finally figured it out!

I'm not sure I understand completely, but it sounds like my extra $800 was legitimate.

Thank you

 

[Halbleib1]

I'm not sure I understand completely, but it sounds like my extra $800 was legitimate.

Thank you

Sorry about that it is a little hard to translate what is in my head into written form online. LOL

Yes I would say your refund is legit. Enjoy the extra money.