After filing 19's W2,my return is less than 18's return, when I made more, and paid more in taxes this past year vs 2018. I made no changes from last year. Why is that?

[Critter]

OK ... you may have not "made any changes" but there are always differences from year to year.  Review your 2018 & 2019 returns side by side to see what those differences are.  The increased income increases your taxes and the increase in withholding may not have kept up. 

[DawnC · Accepted solution]

Although tax law changes lowered the rates for five of seven tax brackets, your refund may not be as big as you expected because, proportionately, less income tax was taken out of your paychecks throughout the year. If you didn't update your W-4 for 2019 or 2018 (most people didn't), it’s highly possible this is why your refund isn’t as large as you expected.  We've got some other possible reasons for a year-over-year refund decrease, see below.  

• Changes in your income or tax rate
• State and local income tax deduction changes
• Losing certain credits or deductions
• Not updating your W-4
• You had income from Self-Employment 
• You deferred less income into your Employer-Sponsored Retirement Plan or Flexible Savings Plan
• You deleted a dependent or one of your dependents turned 17

The easiest way to determine what happened is to compare this year's return to the previous year's return.  Also, double check your data entry to ensure all numbers from your tax documents were entered correctly.   

Tip: If your refund is wildly off, you may have mistyped a dollar amount somewhere. An extra digit here, a missing number there, even a misplaced decimal point can have an eye-popping (but easily correctable) effect on your refund.

Video - Why did my refund go down compared to last year's?

Related Information:

• Why is my direct-deposited refund or check lower than the amount in TurboTax?
• Why don't I qualify for EIC?
• Why did my refund drop when I entered a second W-2?
• What are the qualifications for the Earned Income Credit (EIC or EITC)?
• Why doesn't my refund increase when I enter a deduction?