Above, xmasbaby0 provides a link for Who Can Garnish an Income Tax Refund?, which provides some important information that seems relevant to you, based on your response: "Federal law allows only state and federal government agencies (not individual or private creditors) to take your refund as payment toward a debt. However, once you deposit the refund into your bank account, these rules no longer apply. Depending on the laws of your state, private creditors may have access to those funds."
To put another way, private creditors can't take your refund, but they may be able to get access to funds in your bank account, depending on state law.
If your state allows access to your bank account by private creditors, you might consider receiving your refund via check, as opposed to direct deposit, so that you can control what happens to your refund money.
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