There are a few reasons why this may happen. We will break down the answers into two categories.
- If you paid us directly, and NOT out of your refund.
If you paid us directly, and your refund was less than you expected, it may have been reduced by the IRS or a Financial Management Service (FMS) to pay past-due child support, student loan debt, federal agency non-tax debts, state income tax obligations, or unemployment compensation debts owed to a state. You should receive a letter from the IRS and/or state within a few weeks of receiving your refund explaining why your refund was reduced. You can also call the FMS office of the IRS and use the automated system to check for any debts on file:
IRS Financial Management Service: 800-304-3107
- If you paid our fees out of your refund.
If you chose to pay our fee out of your refund, there is another possible scenario. All of the above still applies but in addition to that, you may be seeing our fee come out of one refund instead of the other. Our fee is taken out of the first refund that shows up. Our cover letter always shows your refunds based on your federal (IRS) refund showing up first. If your state refund happens to show up first, our fee will be subtracted from that. So even though it may seem that you received less than you were supposed to, please wait until the other refund arrives. The second refund should be more than expected since our fee has already been paid. At that point, you should see that the total from the two refunds is correct, and you’ve received everything you were supposed to receive. If it still does not add up correctly, then you may have been garnished due to one of the reasons listed in the first paragraph above.