It’s an interest-free loan to the government
When you get back a large refund it means the government was able to hold on to your money over the past year to do with as they wanted. And what do you get in return fro allowing them to hold your money? You get your money back. That’s it. It was a free loan. Know what happens if you owe the government money for a year? Penalties and interest tacked onto what you owe. Even a low-interest savings account gives you something back. So why loan your money out for nothing?!?
Inflation
As defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation is “a process of continuously rising prices, or equivalently, of a continuously falling value of money.” What this means is a dollar today will be worth less than a dollar a year from now. There’s a neat little inflation calculator on the BLS site. Plugging in $1000 for 2007 I see this has the same buying power as $1020.98 in 2008. This means I need $20.98 more in 2008 to buy what I did in 2007.
Let’s look at this another way. If you get a $1000 tax refund for the previous year it’s really only worth about $979! By letting the government hold your money you’ve lost $21 in spending power! That doesn’t seem like a good deal.
You may be inclined to spend it
I hear so many people say something along the lines of “I can’t wait until I get my tax refund so I can buy…” Getting a big chunk of change at once can give someone big eyes to go spending. If you have the money broken out in smaller pieces in your paycheck rather than one lump sum you may be less inclined to spend it all on a big purchase.
It’s your money!
This is a simple one. The money is yours. Why wait for it? Look, if you like lending money out in small pieces just to have it handed back to you in one lump sum at a later point then contact me and I’ll hold it for you! Really. I’d love to have your money growing in my accounts. I’ll give you back what you gave me.
So what to do? The goal should be to get as close to zero as possible on your tax return (you don’t owe taxes and the IRS doesn’t owe you a refund). MSN Money has a nice article called Get Next Year’s Tax Refund Now which talks about changing the withholding on your W-4 form so that you can get more in your paycheck rather than pay out more taxes every pay period and get a large refund next year. I recently changed my W-4 and now I’m getting an additional $125 per paycheck. That’s $3000 for the year! Check with a tax professional if you should have any questions.
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how government do not interfer into economic fields?
how government interfer into economics fields?