Refund? Refund!? SOME PEOPLE STILL GET A FRICKING REFUND!!!??? I haven’t gotten a refund since the mid-1990s! Some goon in the IRS thought it would be a great freaking idea to slash the amount of withholding, y’know, to ease the burden on us little people. But they forgot to equally slash to tax on married couples filing jointly. Every year I have increased by $50 PER MONTH the amount of withholding from my paycheck, and every year I end up writing a damn check to Uncle Sam. Last year, massive expenditures on graduate school (all of it borrowed) allowed us to break even for the first time since 1994. So I don’t care what anyone does with their tax refund, do you hear me?! A pox on all your houses!!!
Okay, you guys know I’m kidding with the Shakespeare reference, right?
I’m not even sure I am going to get one this year. After cashing out an IRA and my retirement then taking on 3 jobs… I am sure I won’t get anything back. If I do, then it will be a nice surprise to my bill collectors. 
I hope that the amount I owe will be just under the level that would incur a penalty.
According to my calculations (not sure about the exact amount of what I’ll be claiming as education credits since I’m not quite sure of the total of qualifying expenses but I’m starting with what I got last year) I should be getting back about $1400 in combined federal and state refunds. All of that goes right to paying off debts I’ve foolishly got myself into.
Because it’s tres gauche to be caught at a gunfight with last years model, don’t you have any sense of style?
Refund? I wish. Try being self employed. Not only do I pay, I have to pay four times a year, including double SS payments that I’ll never see.
I have no clue what our return will look like. We paid about 8000 in interest on our home, and have one kid.
What we do get will go into paying off my meager credit card (which will then be cancelled), buying tickets for my kids to come for the summer, and renovating the boys room.
And a new dishwasher.
Everything else will go towards our outstanding line-of-credit, which we just borrowed 16K against to get our of a nasty situation.
Another self employed person here. We’ll be paying a lot next week but hopefully minimizing the final hit that we owe after contributing to our retirement funds fully. I hope to not owe anything or get anything back after this installment. It worked out that way last year. I just talked with the accountant to figure out the last payment due Jan 15. The estimated tax is grossly underestimated so now our final tax bill is a lot. It’s making us nervous but I’m sure we’ll figure out something by next week.
I try to have as little refund as possible. I think it’s weird the way people overpay then act like it’s free money. And if you make so little that you hardly pay any taxes, spending it frivolously seems counterintuitive.
Probably purchase a new monitor (ours has been wonky lately, though the entertaining “mirror image” display only happened once). The rest will likely go to pay off a chunk of dental bills from last year and this year (ouch).
Our refunds have been large the last few years. We’ve got an unusual tax situation - we have a nanny and have to have enough withheld to cover our share of her social security taxes, plus the withholding for federal / SS taxes we take from her check. This makes it very tough to correctly estimate the proper withholding… the one year we tried paring our withholding down just a bit (so we weren’t lending the Feds the equivalent of 2 months mortgage payments), we wound up owing a chunk of change 
Some may go to the Roth IRAs, also.
I’m thinking some lasik would be a good idea.
That or wild women… 
Buying groceries and paying rent.
I got a tax rebate (or somesuch) of ~ $75 a couple of days ago–I don’t have to pay off Visa or tuition bills right now, so it’ll probably help buy a new pair of speakers for my computer.
Or booze and strippers. Either one is good.
No, I know that it’s costing me interest. I simply don’t care at this point, because the interest that would accrue is marginal, and it’s not as though it would accrue on a big lump-sum, rather it would accrue on small amounts that add up to acceptably minor sums.
I see. No fun for me from now on.
As little as I make, I think I can see my way clear to grant myself the equivalent of $2 a day to indulge myself once a year.
It just seems like you’re saying “As little as I make, I deserve to use the little that I make and have fun!” where it seems more rational to me to say “As little as I make, I’d better make that little bit work for me so I have a cushion, since I can’t sock away large sums.”
You’re getting a large refund because you’re broke. And then you’re broke because you spend your large refund on crap you don’t need. It’s your life, obviously, but doesn’t that feel risky? It would to me.
Please don’t make assumptions based on less than all the facts.
We did fine last year. However, our 1040 doesn’t reflect that because a significant portion of our income isn’t taxable, and credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit offset a good bit of what is taxable. Consequently, on paper, it looks like we’re broke, but we’re not. That will change this year, so next year’s refund won’t be as sweet, if we get anything back at all.
That being said, tax refunds are often the only significant windfall a lot of people get all year. Some are able to save it and keep it as a cushion. Some use it for large purchases like furniture or car or house repairs. Heck, I have a friend who allots a certain amount so she can take her kids to a local amusement park, which they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. If that makes these people irresponsible, so be it.
Robin
I miss the days of living in the NWT in Canada. What with the Northern Living Allowance, I would routinely get a refund of $4000 or more. Now, I am married to a self-employed person and we file jointly, which means that we pay. Everything I make in the course of a year goes toward that debt.
Let’s see - tax return - I’m anticipating something in our lives will go horribly wrong just in time to eat every last cent. That’s what’s happened historically, anyway.
So I’m not really looking forward to it.
Of course they can do it otherwise! It’s their money which they had withheld from their paychecks and put into an interest-free savings account which was held by the federal government. The money doesn’t appear from nowhere; it’s money the family went without during the year, money the family (if they are like most Americans) could have used to pay off high-interest loans and credit cards. Instead, they loaned it to the government, then act like it’s free money when the government gives it back. So, it’s a savings account that they can only access once a year that doesn’t give interest that isn’t available to pay off high-interest debt and that can easily be replicated by having a portion of each paycheck automatically deposited into a savings account.
I’m not interested in getting into a pissing contest. Suffice it to say that not everyone lives a middle-class existence where tax refunds represent overpayments to the government.
Robin
For those who don’t, there’s even better reason to be prudent with the money received.