How This Site Is Funded
Federaltaxnotes is an independent informational resource about federal and state tax refund statuses, processing stages, payment methods, and the official tools used to check refund progress. To help support the cost of researching, writing, and maintaining this content, certain pages on the Site may contain affiliate links. When a reader clicks one of these links and goes on to take a qualifying action on the linked site, we may earn a commission from the operator of that site. This disclosure explains exactly how that works, so you always know where our content ends and a commercial relationship might begin.
What an Affiliate Link Is
An affiliate link is simply a tracked link. It looks like an ordinary link in the text of an article, but it carries a code that lets the destination site know the visit came from Federaltaxnotes. If you follow that link and later complete an action the destination site counts as a qualifying event, we may be credited with a small commission. The link itself does not change where the link goes, what you see there, or how that third-party site operates; it only allows us to be compensated for referring a visitor.
What It Costs You
Following an affiliate link costs you nothing extra. The price or terms you encounter on the destination site are the same whether you arrive there through one of our links or by typing the address in directly. Any commission we might receive is paid by the destination site out of its own margin, not added on top of anything you see or experience. We do not sell products or services directly on Federaltaxnotes, and the Site itself has nothing available for purchase.
How This Affects What We Publish
Editorial independence is central to how we operate. Whether or not a page contains an affiliate link has no bearing on how we compare refund statuses, explain processing stages, or describe the differences between direct deposit and paper check disbursement, for example. A commission opportunity never buys a favorable mention, a higher ranking in a comparison, or inclusion in an article where it does not genuinely belong. We write our comparisons — such as how "received," "approved," and "sent" differ, or why a refund might be delayed or offset — based on publicly available information about how federal and state tax processes work, not based on which links happen to be nearby.
How to Identify Affiliate Links
Where a page contains affiliate links, we aim to make that clear through this disclosure and, where practical, through in-context notes near the relevant links themselves. If you are ever unsure whether a specific link on the Site is an affiliate link, you are welcome to ask us directly through the contact details below, and we will tell you plainly.
Advertising and Sponsored Content
From time to time, the Site may display advertising or sponsored content supplied by third parties. Where content is sponsored, we label it as such. Advertising placements are sold independently of our editorial judgments about refund statuses, processing timeframes, or comparisons between federal and state systems, and an advertiser's participation does not entitle them to influence over the substance of our articles.
Third-Party Sites
Links on this Site, whether affiliate links or ordinary references, may lead to official government resources or to independent third-party sites. We do not control the content, policies, or practices of those destinations, and we encourage you to review their own terms and privacy notices before taking any action there. For information about how the Site itself handles data, see our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.
Questions
If you have questions about this disclosure, about a specific link you encountered on the Site, or about how Federaltaxnotes is funded more generally, you can reach us at [email protected] or by phone at +1 (512) 555-0102, Monday to Friday 10:00–19:00, Saturday and Sunday closed. Our address is 164 Market Street, Suite 6, Austin, TX 78546, United States. You can also visit our Contact page, learn more About Us, or browse What We Cover for our full range of refund-related comparisons.