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sadora Bielsky's tax bill this year brought her to tears. Last year, her family of four's refund topped $3,600. This year, the Colorado family owed in the thousands. "I plugged it all in and at first I thought oh my goodness we're getting $8,000 back and then I realized it was the wrong color … so I went back in and checked everything and then I started to cry," Bielsky said. Many Americans are learning their tax refund is not as much as they expected, or they are receiving a big tax bill. The average refund compared to last year...

(CNN) — Tax season is off to a slower start this year, with early filers seeing smaller average refunds. The average refund is down about 8% under the first full year of the overhauled tax code, according to data released by the IRS on Friday. Refunds averaged $1,865 compared to $2,035 for tax year 2017. The total number of returns received also dipped during the first week of the season ending February 1, down from about 18 million to some 16 million so far in 2019. This season will be watched closely to gauge the real impact of the Republican-led...

**SNIP** 2. You might not get as much money back, but that doesn't mean you'll pay more either. Accountants call this year's process easier for the average person. With the new tax law, everyone's filing on the same form. Most people's tax rate is less, too. But that's not all: Your refund check may be less may be less, a lot less, than last year. Instead of withholding as much throughout the year, the government gave it to the people to spend, which is something not everyone realizes. "They anticipated for the lower rates," said Tylor Katze of Bennett Tax....

The government shutdown could delay your tax refund this year, but if you owe the IRS money, then you may still have to pay on time regardless. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the Internal Revenue Service is one of the federal agencies without funding and is being run with one-eighth of its normal staffing as the government shutdown continues. While the IRS does conduct some business during shutdowns, it generally does not issue refunds, answer taxpayer questions outside the filing season or conduct audits. The Treasury Department considers these non-excepted activities during a shutdown and positions that...

Wells Fargo & Co. is refunding hundreds of thousands of customers tens of millions of dollars for account add-on products such as legal services or insurance, Dow Jones reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Wells Fargo shares were lower by 0.3 percent in early trading Thursday. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is looking into the matter, the report said. Wells Fargo first disclosed issues with add-on products in its second quarter regulatory filing last year. In its most recent filing in May it said practices related to consumer add-on products like identity theft and debt protection were the subject...

One way this potential government shutdown would be different than in the past -- there’s never been a federal shutdown during tax filing season. Nor has the government been shut down amid the implementation of a massive tax code overhaul. The Internal Revenue Service would lose an estimated 56 percent of its workforce to furloughs if the government shuts down, according to the U.S. Treasury. And it would be happening right when the IRS is updating its guidelines and software, while also fielding questions from the public about new tax laws. Experts told the Washington Post that even a short...

If Trump wants to hit the Democrat base hard and put maximum pressure on the Dem's, he needs to announce that during the "Chucky Schumer Shutdown" there will be no IRS refund checks. Between the earned income credit and the child tax credit, low income taxpayers with children can get over $8,000 in tax refund without paying anything in. These people drool and chomp at the bit, screaming if their refunds don't arrive ASAP. They will put lots of pressure on the Dem's.

irecTV is offering unprecedented refunds for fans who want to cancel their NFL Sunday Ticket package, if they inform the company that they are doing so due to the recent protests during the national anthem, a source confirmed. Once the season starts, fans usually cannot cancel their subscriptions, but AT&T, which owns DirecTV, decided to change the policy due to the sensitivity of the issue. The price of the package, which allows fans to get out-of-market games, is about $280. An AT&T spokesperson declined to confirm the cancellation policy and said the company would have no numbers to share. The...

Well, why not? Donors to Jill Stein’s ludicrous efforts to recount states with too-large-to-change gaps wasted their money while promising the undeliverable. Her fantasies about roving bands of hackers carrying floppy disks visiting every voting machine in only states that Donald Trump won turned out to be paranoid delusions. Wisconsin’s statewide recount, 70% of which was done by hand, produced only a 0.055% change in the outcome … and increased Trump’s lead by 131 votes. Michigan’s results before the recount got shut down at the 40% mark show a similarly small net change (0.078%). Fresh off of that success, Stein...

Here’s an interesting way the government is blowing your tax dollars, but more on the state and local level than the federal. As much as I love movies, (well, some of them anyway) the process of making them involves a lot of money. This won’t come as a surprise to anyone who follows the box office numbers on a regular basis. In 1980 the average cost of making a Hollywood film was $4.3M. By last year the average had gone up to $200M and studios are spending up to $100M just on marketing for the big ticket pictures. With that...

For the first time in my life of fifty-one years, I still haven't received my tax refund because of the Obamacare portion of my taxes. I waited two hours on the phone in early September to finally talk to an IRS agent, only to be told I should give my situation another 60 days because the agency is so overwhelmed with Obamacare crap they are trying to process.

DENVER — In the State Capitol, they are calling it Refund Madness. A year after Colorado became the first state to allow recreational marijuana sales, millions of tax dollars are rolling in, dedicated to funding school construction, marijuana education campaigns and armies of marijuana inspectors and regulators. But a legal snarl may force the state to hand that money back to marijuana consumers, growers and the public — and lawmakers do not want to. The problem is a strict anti-spending provision in the state Constitution that touches every corner of public life, like school funding, state health care, local libraries...

IRS paid out $5.8 billion in fraudulent tax refunds last year as Social Security records show that 6.5m people in the US are 112 Americans are getting older, but not this old: Social Security records show that 6.5 million people in the U.S. have reached the ripe old age of 112. In reality, only few could possibly be alive. As of last fall, there were only 42 people known to be that old in the entire world. But Social Security does not have death records for millions of these people, with the oldest born in 1869, according to a report...

**SNIP** Consumers who get married, divorced, or have children between now and the next enrollment period will find making changes “a convoluted, multi-step process.” After hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the initial rollout and tens of millions spent to fix the system afterward, HHS and insurance companies will still rely on “clunky workarounds and manual spreadsheets,” Politico reported this week. And that 11.4 million enrollment figure? That’s largely overstated too, Avik Roy writes at Forbes. First, it’s cumulative; it represents the total number of those who completed applications and those previously enrolled. This year’s additions are also signups,...

Coming this tax season from the IRS: More identity-theft risk, longer hold times and refund checks that take a WEEK longer to arrive The IRS, long Americans' least-favorite government agency, is likely to be a lot less popular this tax season - refunds will be slower, the risk of identity theft will be higher and there will be longer hold times to reach customer service. By some estimates, fewer than half of the taxpayers who call the IRS will be able to speak to a representative. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen revealed to the changes to employees in a memo -...

As many as 3.4 million people who received Obamacare subsidies may owe refunds to the federal government, according to an estimate by a tax preparation firm. H&R Block is estimating that as many as half of the 6.8 million people who received insurance premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act benefited from subsidies that were too large, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. “The ACA is going to result in more confusion for existing clients, and many taxpayers may well be very disappointed by getting less money and possibly even owing money," the president of a tax preparation and education...

If you're one of the almost 6 million individuals who received a government subsidy toward the health insurance you bought on Healthcare.gov or your state's insurance exchange, then prepare for a possible delay in processing your 2014 tax return and refund. That's because folks who bought subsidized health insurance will receive a new tax form called Form 1095-A Health Insurance Marketplace Statement. The insurance exchanges are supposed to provide these forms. The problem is it's unclear whether the processing steps for this form have been finalized. In the past, whenever new forms and processing procedures aren't finalized and changes are...

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=132_1419174652 Mistral Deal In Doubt: France Either Delivers Warships Or Give Moscow Refund, Says Russian Official Sounds like Russia realizes buying French warships is not a good idea, but France is now stuck in EU sanctions which prohibits it from delivering the warships. Russia's Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov has told Interfax that France must decide by the end of the year if it will deliver two mistral class warships or give Moscow a refund. He also reportedly said that the second option of a refund "might even be preferable."

One of Senator Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) Republican challengers, Colonel Rob Maness, has called on her to "produce specific details of each flight" included in the 11 page spreadsheet of "mixed-purpose" charter flights she took between 2002 and 2014 released by her campaign on Friday and described as a "full report." "[I]f the Senator refuses to provide full disclosure for these flights," Maness told Breitbart News in an e-mail on Sunday, "she should immediately refund taxpayers for these 'mixed-purpose' chartered flights." Breitbart News reported on Saturday that Landrieu's own press statement on Friday identified 43 such chartered flights she took between...

Boulder County is moving forward with plans to refund $5.6 million in assessments paid by homeowners after officials announced they won't appeal a judge's ruling that the county exceeded its authority in forming a local improvement district to pay for the repaving of roads in rural subdivisions. ...