IRS Refund Taken

Your tax return was filed and you are expecting a refund from the IRS. But you never received the refund. You receive a letter notifying you that IRS refund was garnished. What do you do now?

Treasury Offset Program

The Department of Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Services (BFS) is responsible for issuing refunds. The BFS is authorized by Congress to conduct the Treasury Offset Program (TOP). The TOP program is used by the BFS to garnish your refund to pay outstanding debt.

Your refund can be garnished for the following debts:

– Unpaid IRS back taxes
– Past-due child support
– Federal government non-tax debits
– Federal Student Loans
– General Services Administration, GSA
– State income taxes
– Certain unemployment compensation debts

IRS is Unable to Help

The IRS is unable to help you if your IRS refund was garnished for other debts.  You will need to contact the government agency that issued the garnishment about your IRS refund. Do not call the IRS; there will be nothing the IRS can do to help.

Your refund was taken by the Department of Education for unpaid student loan debt. You will need to contact the Department of Education about getting your IRS refund back.

Your refund was taken to pay past-due child support. If the garnishment was an error, then contact the Friend of the Court.

Your refund was taken to pay state back taxes. Contact the state agency that garnished your refund.

Stop the IRS Refund Garnishment

You may be able to stop your refund from being garnished. We recommend contacting the government agency to make arrangements to pay any outstanding debt before you file a tax return with a refund. Once arrangements are made, the government agency may issue a levy release so your IRS tax refund is not taken. Again this needs to be done before the tax return is filed.