On: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive TurboTax “free” filing campaign

[cmelbye]

If you are audited by the IRS and they find that you overpaid, they will issue a refund. It's not a one-way street.

[elihu → cmelbye]

I've never been audited, but several times I've had the IRS just tell me I did my return wrong and give me a bigger refund.

[ryanianian → cmelbye]

Does the IRS start an audit if they suspect you massively overpaid? They certainly do if you massively underpay.

[_lqaf → ryanianian]

Not an audit, but they corrected a mistake I made in my favor once. It was a trivial amount, like $30 or something, but they sent me a little packet explaining what they did, why, and a check.

[antsar → cmelbye]

Sure. But why in the world would they audit you if you overpaid?

[function_seven → antsar]

Whatever indicators they use to select audit recipients may correlate with under-payers, but it's not a guarantee. I'm sure there's some fraction of those they audit that turn out to have paid too much.

[smitop → function_seven]

They have some data on this (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p55b.pdf, pages 33-35). Out of 509,917 examinations, 18,988 resulted in a refund. There was $7.0 billion of tax refunded in 2020. For comparison, there was $17.2 billion of additional tax generated with additional recommended and unagreed amounts.

[antsar → smitop]

Huh, that's a pretty large amount of refunds (granted, still $10B in additional revenue). Interesting data, thank you for sharing.

[skeeter2020 → cmelbye]

you can also claim refunds for years back; like an audit this is a 2-way street as well.

[alasdair_ → skeeter2020]

It isn’t equal however. If you underpay, the IRS has seven years to get the money. If you overpay, you have three. (Simplified of course)