The surprise among a lot of American taxpayers shouldn’t be a total surprise.
The surprise is the fact that the average amount of federal income tax refunds are lower and some taxpayers are even finding out they owe the government some money this year.
The IRS says the first batch of tax refunds sent out the first two weeks of the tax season are down an average approaching 10 percent.
Why it shouldn’t be a total surprise is because in 2017, Congress approved the new Tax Cut law in 2017. There was a lot of talk at the time about how Americans would get more money in their paychecks.But less talk about what that would mean.
So what’s happening now, says Andrea Coombes, a tax specialist at NerdWallet, a lack of awareness on the part of taxpayers over what to do with their forms is leading to the surprise over lower tax refunds.
People paying less tax per paycheck but not making the adjustments on withholding leading to smaller refunds.
But tax experts point out there were other changes in the Tax Law that also can affect your refund and how much you have to pay so getting expert advice on what the new law means is a good idea.
After all, expecting to know everything about something Congress does is not a realistic expectation.
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