To find out if you may have an offset or if you have questions about an offset, contact the agency to which you owe the debt. We also may have changed your refund amount because we made changes to your tax return. You'll get a notice explaining the changes.
If your debt meets submission criteria for offset, BFS will reduce your refund as needed to pay off the debt you owe to the agency. Any portion of your remaining refund after offset is issued in a check or direct deposited as originally requested on the return. BFS will send you a notice if an offset occurs.
If you didn't get an offset notice
If you didn't get a notice about an offset but your tax refund is smaller than you expected, call the IRS at 800-829-1040 (or TTY/TDD 800-877-8339).
You generally cannot stop a tax refund offset. The IRS service center processing the return will likely not honor the request. However, the documentation submitted with the tax return can help with other interactions with the IRS. This first option presupposes that the taxpayer knows of their Federal or other debt.
The IRS may, for example, choose not to offset an overpayment against an outstanding federal tax refund because of undue hardship. However, the IRS's authority not to offset generally disappears once the offset has been done—it cannot reverse an offset.
If your debt has been paid in full, or if you do not owe the debt for other reasons, IDES is responsible for instructing Treasury to stop the offset process. IDES is also responsible for returning to you any part of your payment that should not have been reduced.
While the payment pause is ending at the end of August 2023, the Department of Education has stated that tax refund offsets will continue to be paused until at least six months after the payment pause ends.
Tax Refund Offset
The debtor is notified in advance of any offset action to be taken. Individuals may call the TOP Interactive Voice Response (IVR) at 800-304-3107 to determine the contact information for the agency or state they owe.
Request an expedited refund by calling the IRS at 800-829-1040 (TTY/TDD 800-829-4059). Request a manual refund expedited to you.
Unpaid Debts or Taxes
Outstanding debts can come back to haunt you and delay your tax refund. The Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS) will reduce or withhold your tax refund if you owe certain types of debt. This is referred to as a tax offset and it can apply to: Past-due child support.
The IRS sends notices and letters for the following reasons: You have a balance due. You are due a larger or smaller refund. We have a question about your tax return.
The Treasury Offset Program (TOP) collects past-due (delinquent) debts (for example, child support payments) that people owe to state and federal agencies. TOP matches people and businesses who owe delinquent debts with money that federal agencies are paying (for example, a tax refund).
If the IRS is reviewing your return, it may have questions about your wages and withholding, or credits or expenses shown on your tax return. The review process could take anywhere from 45 to 180 days, depending on the number and types of issues the IRS is reviewing.
The intent to offset notice is a letter that the IRS sends out to taxpayers when the agency plans to keep their tax refunds and apply them to outstanding debts. You may also receive a notice of intent to offset if the government decides to take seize a federal payment due to unpaid liabilities.
The IRS will not seize your tax refund if you only owe a few dollars in child support. Instead, your case must meet one of these requirements to qualify for the Treasury Offset Program. If the recipient of your child support receives state benefits, you must owe at least $150 in child support to qualify.
You can access your federal tax account through a secure login at IRS.gov/account. View the amount you owe, along with details of your balance, your payment history, tax records, and key tax return information from your most recent tax return as originally filed.
Are all notices available online? Not all notices are available online, please continue to check your postal mail for IRS notices. You can sign up to receive email notifications when new notices are available on your profile in your online account.
If you owe back taxes, the IRS will take all your refunds to pay your tax bill, until it's paid off. The IRS will take your refund even if you're in a payment plan (called an installment agreement).
Tax Topic 151 means your tax return is now under review by the IRS. The agency either needs to verify certain credits or dependents, or it has determined that your tax refund will be reduced to pay money that it believes you owe.
Whether tax topic 203 is considered good or bad depends on your perspective. While it may seem bad that your tax refund is being lowered due to an offset, it is beneficial that the refund is being used to pay off debts taxpayers owe so that they no longer have a tax liability.
You owe $25,000 or less (If you owe more than $25,000, you may pay down the balance to $25,000 prior to requesting withdrawal of the Notice of Federal Tax Lien) Your Direct Debit Installment Agreement must full pay the amount you owe within 60 months or before the Collection Statute expires, whichever is earlier.
The Fresh Start Program was designed to help taxpayers stuck in debt to reduce the amount they owe, so they can get back on track with their tax payments and begin to plan for their financial future.
Offset payments posting to your account
It takes at least 4 weeks for a payment sent to us to post to your account. The partner state may continue to send us additional refunds if their payments do not post to your account in time for us to notify them to stop withholding funds.
Collection activities are currently paused for all federal student loans through September 2024, which should protect your 2022 and 2023 federal and state tax refunds.
Contact an IRS customer service representative to correct any agency errors by calling 800-829-1040 (see telephone assistance for hours of operation).