NY Tax Refund Typo Leaves Thousands With Reduced Refunds, or Owing More

There’s nothing exciting about filing taxes except the part where you’re issued a refund (if you’re lucky enough to get one). The overall process is confusing, time-consuming, and costly, but it was made even more burdensome for more than 50,000 taxpayers in New York who filed their returns early in 2026.

And it’s all thanks to a typo the Department of Taxation and Finance (DTF) detected in select tax forms. Interested in what happened or think you might be affected? Keep reading for all the details.

Many New Yorkers, around 52,000 if you want real numbers, were hit with either a reduced refund notice or a notice indicating more income tax was due in early 2026 after the New York Department of Taxation and Finance discovered a typo in some tax forms, Times Union reported. While the agency doesn’t appear to have issued any public statements on social media or via a press release, it reportedly notified tax professionals about the error and said it was working to fix it.

So, who does this affect? Well, here are the types of returns believed to be impacted.

Those who filed an early tax return as married filing jointly or as a qualified surviving spouse with an adjusted gross income between $107,650 and $161,550 were potentially affected. Around 52,000 people received notices that their refund amounts were reduced and subsequently received a lower refund than they were initially told, or a notice informing them they actually owe more money to the department.

The Department of Taxation and Finance said in a notice to tax professionals, per Times Union, that the error occurred after a typo was made in “one of the withholding tables included in the submitted tax forms.” Tax preparers and preparation companies are given specific forms from state and federal agencies like the IRS to fill out customer information.

But in this case, those withholding tables contained a mistake, and thousands of people received a tax notice from the DTF they weren’t expecting.

The outlet reports the department identified the error around the third week of February and was able to fix it at the beginning of March, meaning those who filed after that time likely won’t be impacted by the typo.

While the tax notice was probably enough to give recipients a panic attack, especially for those expecting a larger refund or who thought they had already settled their tax bill, there’s a silver lining. The DTF shared in that same notice to tax professionals that nothing needs to be done on the taxpayer’s part to correct the issue.

The department reportedly wrote in the notice, “Affected returns will be reprocessed automatically by DTF, and corrected notices, including additional refund amounts if applicable, will be sent directly to impacted taxpayers. No taxpayer action is necessary.”

While that’s certainly good news, one tax professional told the Times Union that the mistake still looks bad on the preparer’s part, even though it had nothing to do with them.