April is National Financial Literacy Month. To mark the occasion, MarketWatch will publish a series of “Financial Fitness” articles to help readers improve their fiscal health, and offer advice on how to save, invest and spend their money wisely. Read more here. If you’re feeling underwhelmed by the size of your income-tax refund this year, you’re probably not alone. Before the start of the 2023 filing season, tax professionals and the Internal Revenue Service were cautioning U.S. taxpayers that many refunds would likely be smaller this year due to the expiration of a number of pandemic-related boosts to tax credits and deductions.
The filing deadline is Tuesday, April 18 — except for those who file for an extension — and the predictions about smaller refunds are coming into focus. The drop in refund amounts comes as particularly bad news at a time when historically high inflation is cooling only slowly. Also read: Yes, inflation does affect your tax return. Here are 5 things to watch out for. On Friday, the latest filing statistics from the IRS confirmed the trend on refund amounts. But while last-minute filers should be prepared to join the crowd of disappointed people, it’s not a hard and fast guarantee that they will. While many taxpayers are getting smaller refunds than they did last year, some wealthier taxpayers are seeing larger refunds this year, according to a new analysis from Bank of America. That might be explained by the capital losses investors can apply against their capital gains and income, researchers said. And investors sure did sustain losses last year, as stocks had their worst performance since 2008. For many people, an income-tax refund is a significant annual event in their financial lives. But like the tax code itself, lives are complicated. Here’s how refunds are playing out this tax season.Refunds are smalle …
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