The Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) has published follow-up guidance explaining how taxpayers can read their IRS tax account transcripts to spot potential COVID-19 disaster relief refunds they may still be owed. Titled “How to Use IRS Tax Account Transcripts to Identify Potential COVID-19 Disaster Relief Refunds (Part II),” the piece continues an earlier walkthrough aimed at helping people check their own IRS records.
The core idea behind this IRS tax account transcript guidance is simple: your transcript is the official record of what the IRS has posted to your account, and it can reveal credits, penalty relief, or refund activity tied to pandemic-era disaster provisions that you might otherwise miss.
Because the published material available here is limited to the article’s title and its source, the specific line codes and step-by-step examples in the TAS write-up are not reproduced below. What follows explains what the guidance is for and how to reach the original in full.
What is an IRS tax account transcript?
An IRS tax account transcript is a summary of activity on your account for a given tax year. It shows items such as your filing status, adjusted gross income as originally reported, payments, penalties, interest, and any subsequent adjustments the IRS makes after your return is processed.
Calculate Your 2026 COLA Increase →Unlike a return transcript, which mostly mirrors what you filed, the account transcript records what happened afterward. That is why it can be useful for tracing refunds or credits connected to COVID-19 disaster relief, because those adjustments post to the account over time.
How to use your transcript to find potential COVID-19 relief refunds
According to the Taxpayer Advocate Service, the transcript is the document to review when you suspect a pandemic-related credit or refund may apply to your account. The general approach the TAS series describes involves these steps:
- Request the account transcript: Obtain the transcript for each tax year you want to review, since relief measures applied to specific years.
- Look for posted adjustments: Scan the account activity for entries showing credits, penalty abatements, or refund transactions the IRS has recorded.
- Compare against what you expected: Check whether relief you believe you qualified for actually appears on the account.
- Follow up if something is missing: If an expected credit or refund is not shown, that gap is your signal to contact the IRS or seek help.
The exact transaction codes and worked examples appear in the full TAS article. Because those details are not included in the material provided here, readers should consult the original for the precise line-by-line reading.
Where can I get my IRS tax account transcript?
You can request an account transcript directly from the IRS. The most common routes are:
- Online: Through your individual IRS online account, where transcripts can be viewed and downloaded.
- By mail: Using the IRS “Get Transcript by Mail” option or Form 4506-T.
For example, if you want to check the 2020 and 2021 tax years for pandemic-era adjustments, you would pull the account transcript for each of those years separately and review the posted activity on each.
Why does this matter now?
Pandemic-era relief created a wide range of credits, penalty waivers, and refund opportunities, and not every eligible taxpayer received everything they were entitled to automatically. Reviewing your transcript is a way to confirm what the IRS actually applied to your account rather than assuming it was handled correctly.
Because this is a Part II article, it builds on an earlier installment. Reading both parts together gives the fuller picture the Taxpayer Advocate Service intended.
The complete walkthrough was published by the Taxpayer Advocate Service, the independent organization within the IRS that helps taxpayers resolve problems. The full article, including the specific transcript details the summarized version above cannot reproduce, is available through the Taxpayer Advocate Service link accompanying this coverage.
If your transcript shows something you do not understand, or an expected COVID-19 relief refund is missing, the Taxpayer Advocate Service is also the body set up to assist taxpayers who are struggling to get issues resolved with the IRS directly.
