Only the true believers are going to be surprised. Good.
Fuckem
Two times.
It appears that mine will be half of last year, which is better than I thought. The SALT limitation and the removal of the individual deduction really hurts. (The paperwork is also even clumsier than usual.)
Though aware & prepared, the limited SALT deduction really hurt…
The True Believers will succumb to the GOP Blame Machine, but there will be a peel-off.
There will also be a peel-off for those who believe in addition and subtraction.
They have been complaining on Twitter for about a week to ten days already.
The issue isn’t that the refunds are smaller, it’s that the amount of taxes paid/due is higher!
If one gets a refund, it’s not something the government is giving the taxpayer, it’s a refund on taxes withheld vs. taxes due for the year.
We have to make this point crystal clear and not fall into the “my refund check is smaller!” trap.
I hope the woman who was so excited with her extra $1.50 per pay period gets slapped with a huge taxes due bill. Delayed pain is still pain and delayed realization of the Big Lie is still a Big Lie.
which fattened some Americans’ take-home pay in paychecks issued over the last year
Obama’s tax cut in the stimulus package had the same problem, no one really noticed the very tiny bump in take home pay. Many were not even aware they were getting a tax cut built into their paycheck. That tax cut amounted to a very large part of the 700 billion stimulus package.
There’s two things going on here. First, they got the withholding tables wrong, or at least adjusted them so people would be paying less during the year, which means instead of a big refund in April they were paid in little bits in their paychecks. In theory this is a good thing, you want to owe/pay as close to $0 as you can. The problem is the psychology…they told people they would get a tax cut, but left out that their refunds would be different, so people are paying or getting no refund when they got a refund before. Even if they got a cut (and most people received an almost unnoticeable cut), it looks to them like they paid more.
Second, the way itemizing and deductions has changed is screwing a lot of people. That may include me…I haven’t done my taxes yet, and I both paid ahead my property taxes and had everything change because I got married, but owning a home in CA pretty much means I won’t get to take advantage of the deductions and itemization like before. I think a lot of homeowners (especially without kids) are ending up in the same situation, where it’s changing from being able to itemize and deduct tax, mortgage interest, state taxes, charity donations, to just taking the standard deduction which doesn’t pay off nearly as well.
It’s all very stupid, and meant to punish the liberal states, but it looks like it’s going to backfire on Republicans and lose them more support. Of course, they don’t really care, they pushed their wealthy welfare tax scheme onto the nation and can now use the growing deficits to cut everything except the federal spending that goes to their donors and their corporations. Maybe this gives an opening for Democrats to open eyes about the Republican’s extreme policies finally…they have tried in the past but somehow no one listens.
Yep that is screwing with us.
I’m sure they’ll find a way to blame Obama and the Dems
As a single male that doesn’t own any property, I actually came out ahead of last year’s refund by a grand total of two tanks worth of gas
I wonder if people are just looking at their refund and judging on that basis. I have more tax due than last year, because the withholding tables were screwed up, but my actual tax paid for 2018 is less than 2017.
Well said. Republicans really messed this up. People who rely on refunds really need them. Lots of people use it like a forced savings account that provides them with cash for particular annual needs or a reset for credit cards.
Behavioral economists will have a field day with this the refund stuff. It’s a great example of non rational behavior that people choose over rational behavior.
And other people really are realizing how badly the GOP stiffed them. What a mess.
This is a big deal. People are pissed. Trump will no doubt call for “refunds” to be issued immediately, to everyone, and blame Pelosi for stopping it.
I ran my taxes under the old schedule and the new. The Trump cuts resulted in a savings, but it was fairly modest. Not worth the cost of the massive deficits incurred, Unless deficits don’t matter, in which case you can’t use the “we can’t afford it” argument against universal health care, free college tuition or infrastructure.
As I noted in a post in January, I will pay over $2000 more because of the loss of business deductions. I attempted to make adjustments in W-2 withholding but it was not sufficient. My actual tax paid is $2000 plus more. We are likely considered somewhere in the upper middle class. The IRS never could get it right early in the process. But, not their fault because this piece of shit tax cut for the wealthy and business was so poorly done, no one could get a real feel for the outcomes.
Yet, a lot of good economists predicted what is happening now. People are going to be pissed AND believe it was all one big lie, which it was.
Why do you think the R’s didn’t run on the tax cut? Why do you think the coward Paul Ryan ran away as fast as could from the House? He knew he was going to get his ass kicked, and even if the R’s had held the house, he would have to live with the heat from this mess.
Premium or regular?
PT Barnum said there’s a sucker born every minute.
Donald Trump seems to have found every single one of them.