Jim Petro

Ja.mes_roPet

Has the IRS been changing tax rates for normal retirees? My income is fixed and changes only by cost-of-living adjustments. However, each of the last 4 Federal filing years have had much smaller refunds. We are talking $100s less each year until almost nothing this year. The State tax refund has remained constant.

The failure of FreeTaxUSA to have an open direct support line to ask this question is making me very suspicious.

JMSSGV

Tax rates are the responsibility of Congress, not the IRS. Tax rates have changed very little over the past few years (and more.) And I'm not sure why you think FreeTaxUSA has anything do with them.

Do a comparison of each year's income, tax liability and withholding. You should see clearly why your refunds have been decreasing. By the way, there's no point to getting a large refund; you're just giving the government a tax-free loan. The goal of withholding is to pay as close to your tax liability as possible - no refund or balance due. You can always get larger refunds by having more taxes withheld. If you want to reduce your tax liability, you need to look for deductions, credits, or tax-exempt income.