Have you filed a new W-4 recently? It doesn’t use exemptions anymore, or at least, not in the same way as the old form did. While the W-4 system is supposed to result in a modest refund for most taxpayers, and is supposed to keep up with changes in income, it doesn’t always work, depending on each individuals tax situation.
The only way to really know what changed, would be to compare your 2022 paystubs and tax return with your 2023 paystubs and tax return, and with the 2022 and 2023 tax withholding tables found in publication 15-T. You might have a change in your situation that has a larger impact than you expected, or your employer might have switched from using old rules to new rules for processing the W-4 instructions. if you filled out a new W-4 recently, without looking at the new instructions, you might’ve filled it out incorrectly. But no one on this board can tell you exactly what happened.
