Here are two possible explantions:
If you think your refund is just too low, consider this:
There are two main reasons that could happen. The first is that the more income you have, the higher the tax bracket you may find yourself in. The higher the bracket, the bigger percentage of your income is taxed. Here are the brackets for 2019:
https://www.debt.org/tax/brackets/
The second is withholding, the amount your request your employer to withhold on your W-4. There are three choices you can make on line 3: Single, Married or Married but withhold at a higher Single Rate. If you choice the first or third option, they will withhold more than if you choose Married.
On line 5, you tell how many allowances you with to claim. If you choose zero, they will withhold the most based on the tables (see Pub 15 link below). The more allowances, the smaller the refund, BUT, you will get a little more in each paycheck. In that way, you can choose if you prefer to have more money in your paycheck or at the end of the year in your refund.
www.irs.gov/publications/p15/ar02.html
If you are comparing your refund to last years' the passage below might help.There can be any number of reasons but it generally happens because income was greater, withholding was less, or credits were smaller than other years. Filling out a tax return is a process of reconciliation for a particular year. It is almost impossible to have the same return from one year to the next. Filing status may change, you may lose a dependent, or you the withholding tables from the IRS may have been updated.
The surest way to see is to compare your last year return with the current year, line by line. Here are some things to compare:
- Wages
- Other types of income may have increased.
- Your itemized deductions may have decreased.
- You may have lost a credit.
- You may have been assessed other taxes based on other tax forms.
- Your withholding may have gone down.
- As you income increases, your earned income credit may have decreased.
You may in the process discover that you made a mistake and can now correct it or just see how things change from one year to the next.
