I made 24,000 and I only get back 4000 why is that

[hbl3973]

So what's the issue? If you are single, you should have had about $2,800 in federal taxes taken out of your paycheck for your annual gross income of $24K.  After taking out the exemption and standard deduction, the taxable income would be about $13,650 for a tax of about $1,600.  That you got a refund well more than the $1,200 difference between what was withheld and what was calculated tells me you also got well more than expected, perhaps due to some credit that reduced your tax bill by about another $2,400.  As we in this forum have no access to your return, a very good thing, you'll need to check your return yourself to see where the extra refund came from.