- Getting Your Rebate -- If You Used Santa Barbara Bank & Trust To Get Your 2007 Tax Refund
Getting Your Rebate -- If You Used Santa Barbara Bank & Trust To Get Your 2007 Tax Refund
Even if you have received or will receive your tax refund by direct deposit to your bank account using Santa Barbara Bank & Trust, the IRS will not do the same for your tax rebate. It will mail your rebate instead.
This situation applies only if you chose, at the time you filed your tax return, to pay your tax preparation or filing fees by having them deducted from your expected refund. The payment arrangement with the bank, which carries an additional fee, offers an alternative to paying with a credit card.
When TurboTax customers decided to pay their tax preparation or filing fees with their refunds, they authorized a bank to set up temporary accounts to be used only to receive their 2007 income tax refunds from the IRS. The temporary bank-account information was transmitted to the IRS along with each tax return.
The IRS sent the refund to the temporary account and the bank then transmitted the tax refund (minus the tax preparation fees) directly to the customer's actual bank account.
Because the IRS does not receive a taxpayer's bank-account number, under this payment method, it cannot match a taxpayer with that taxpayer's regular bank account.
That's why the IRS decided that taxpayers who entered into financial transactions with third parties, such as SBB&T, would get rebates by mail. This applies to all third-party transactions offered by tax software companies, including "refund anticipation loans" or RALs (loans made to tax filers against their expected refunds). TurboTax does not offer RALs.
The law creating the tax rebates, the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, was signed by President Bush on Feb. 13. As soon as details of the act emerged and could be verified, TurboTax updated customer articles about the rebates. The updates pointed out that customers using the payment method with Santa Barbara Bank & Trust could receive their rebates by mail rather than by direct deposit.
It was not until mid-March, however, that the IRS announced the rebate payment schedule. The schedule showed that rebates would be mailed in order of the last two digits of taxpayers' Social Security numbers --- BUT that direct-deposit recipients would get theirs first.
Check this IRS Web site: Stimulus Payment Schedule
To learn the status of your rebate, visit this IRS site: Where's My Stimulus Payment?
Use this online tool to learn when you will receive your rebate and how much it will be. However, the IRS says that information about your payment won't be available until about a week before your rebate is scheduled to be issued. Refer to the schedule above.
Selecting the "Contact Us" button at the top right of this article will take you to the TurboTax Support Site.
Under No. 2 (Type of Problem), select "Tax Questions."
Under No. 3, you can read additional articles on the tax rebates or you can select "Call Us." The customer service call center is open Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time (11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time).
