Routing Transit Number

When I filed this year’s taxes like I have for the past several, I filed electronically. I also have what I owe or my refund automatically transfered to or from my savings account. This year our state refund was about twice what we owed Uncle Sam, so I had the state money go into savings and scheduled my payment to the IRS for April 2nd, figuring that would be enough time for the refund to get there first.

Today, in the mail, was a refund check from the State of South Carolina. What? I logged into my bank and checked to see if a refund had been deposited and I was getting double refunded. Nope. I broke out my copy of the state return and looked to see if I messed up the account number. Nope. What about the Routing Transit Number? I remember looking up on the web what my banks RTN was, maybe I mistyped it. Nope, I typed in the right RTN for Carolina First, but unfortunately I used the one for the North Carolina region, not South Carolina. Great, what is going to happen when George Bush wants his money on the 2nd of April?

I called up the toll free IRS Help Line and after about 4-5 minutes listening to classical music on hold I spoke with a very helpful lady and she told me that I messed up. There isn’t any policy to amend an electronically submitted return. When the IRS attempts to get their money, the bank will rebuff them because I don’t have an account there. In essence I will have bounced a check to the federal government. When I asked her what would happen then, she replied I would get a bill in the mail for taxes due and a $15 fee for the bouncing. That doesn’t sound to bad, I just hope it doesn’t land me on some “Let’s Audit This Bozo” list.