TurboTax and other tax prep companies, despite working with the U.S. government, don’t have the answers on why some people don’t have their $1,400 stimulus checks in the right accounts or even at all, according to a Wednesday (March 17) CNBC report.
When some users, like Keri Behling, check their accounts, they end up seeing that the payments were deposited in the wrong place.
The accounts often end up being “pass-through” accounts set up by TurboTax. But others have reported their stimulus payments going to accounts they no longer use. Many users said they’d updated their accounts after the previous stimulus payment was sent, using a link given to customers.
Behling did exactly that, according to the report — but it ended up amounting to nothing as the most recent check ended up deposited in accounts they couldn’t access. TurboTax reportedly told Behling there was nothing they could do to help her, saying she’d have to go through the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to try and resolve the issue. Other customers reported similar issues with TurboTax.
A spokesperson for TurboTax said the account issue was only affecting a small number of customers. These customers had updated their banking information directly through TurboTax. The company said that they had “reached out directly to these customers with information about their stimulus payment,” CNBC reported.
The IRS, meanwhile, said payments made to closed accounts will be returned to the IRS and reissued in less than two weeks. Some have already been sent back and others can use the Get My Payment tool to see where their payments are.
The rollout of the stimulus payments has come with numerous errors, such as around 13 million payments put in the wrong accounts in the previous round of $600 checks. The New York Times reported that the reason for what happened is because of the temporary accounts used with tax services such as TurboTax.
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