My federal income tax withheld is$2009.00 but I'm only getting$1003 back. Why did they tax me $1006.00?

[LenaH]

It depends. There are a lot of factors that could effect your tax refund. Typically, you do not get back everything that you pay in taxes. 

Some of these reasons your refund would change from year to year are:

• Less income tax was taken out of your earnings
• You were in a higher tax bracket due to earning more money
• You child turned 17 and no longer eligible for the Child Tax Credit and are now receiving the Credit for Other Dependents
• You no longer qualified for the Earned Income Credit
• You paid off your student loan and cannot deduct any student loan interest
• You are no longer eligible for education credits
• You took on an additional job
• You sold investments
• You had a distribution from a 401k that was not related to Covid-19
• You had a change in filing status
• You got unemployment and not enough taxes were taken out

[Mike9241]

if your employer was withholding it's because your wages for the year were expected to exceed your standard or itemized deductions.  for a single individual, the $1006 in taxes equates to about $10,000 in taxable income (or gross wages of about $22,400 if the standard deduction is used).  we have no access to your return, so the numbers on it may differ greatly from what is presented.