When you are self-employed you have to pay self-employment tax yourself for Social Security and Medicare, as well as ordinary income tax. Since you are not working for an employer, no tax is being withheld from your pay. Income tax refunds come from paying more tax than you owe. If you did not pay any income tax during the year--like by paying estimated quarterly tax payments---then the only "refund " you could get would be from refundable credits such as the recovery rebate credit or child tax credit or maybe earned income credit.
And those credits are applied to any tax you owe....so you might not even receive the full amount of the recovery rebate credit or child tax credit as a refund.
Are you new to being self-employed?
https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/self-employed/help/how-do-i-report-income-from-self-employment/00/...
https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/self-employed/help/what-is-the-self-employment-tax/00/25922
https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/2902389-why-am-i-paying-self-employment-tax
https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1901340-where-do-i-enter-schedule-c
https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/3398950-what-self-employed-expenses-can-i-deduct
https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1901110-do-i-need-to-make-estimated-tax-payments-to-the-irs
**Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to offer the most correct information possible. The poster disclaims any legal responsibility for the accuracy of the information that is contained in this post.**
