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2024 tax refunds could be larger than last year due to new IRS brackets. Here’s what to expect.
Many Americans got a shock last year when the expiration of pandemic-era federal benefits resulted in their receiving a smaller tax refund check. That unwelcome surprise raises the question of what taxpayers can expect this year.
The good news: People could see bigger refunds this year, with some potentially receiving 10% more than a year earlier, according to Mark Steber, chief tax information officer at Jackson Hewitt.
Last year, the average tax refund was $3,167, or almost 3% less than the prior year, according to IRS statistics. By comparison, the typical refund check jumped 15.5% to almost $3,300 in 2022, when taxpayers received generous tax credits like the expanded Child Tax Credit.
The smaller tax refund in 2023 proved to be a double whammy for many Americans, who were at the same time reeling from high inflation that eroded their purchasing power. Tax refunds often represent a household’s biggest annual injection of cash, surpassing a typical worker’s paycheck, and are often used to pay down debt or bolster savings.
How inflation affects your tax refund
Ironically, inflation could ultimately benefit taxpayers this year, tax experts say. That’s because the IRS adjusted many of its provisions in 2023 for inflation, pushing the standard deduction to a more generous level and raising its tax brackets by 7.1% — a historically large adjustment.
“Say your income didn’t keep pace with inflation — you made the same as the prior year but didn’t increase your income by that inflation rate of 7% or so — you could see a better refund,” Steber told CBS MoneyWatch. “We are predicting a higher refund for those people, up to 10%”
Steber said that prediction is based on modeling using last year’s tax refund data, as well as the inflation adjustments from the IRS for tax brackets, the standard deduction and other provisions.
The median worker saw their earnings increase about 5.5% in 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below the 7.1% inflation adjustment adopted by the IRS for many tax provisions last year.
“A lot of people didn’t keep pace with inflation,” Steber said, predicting that middle- and lower-income workers are the most likely to see higher refunds this year.
2024 tax refund calculator
One way to check your refund is to plug in your income and other data into a 2024 tax refund calculator, which are offered by tax prep companies such as H&R Block as well as financial sites such as Nerdwallet.
Not everyone will get a bigger tax refund, of course. And more taxpayers could end up owing this year, especially given that more people took on side gigs last year to compensate for higher costs, Steber said. Some of them might not have paid quarterly self-employment taxes and could owe the IRS come April 15, he noted.
“Like anything in the tax world, there are winners and losers,” said Mark Jaeger, vice president of tax operations at TaxAct.
Homeowners who tapped expanded home energy tax credits might get a bigger refund, he noted, as well as people whose incomes didn’t keep up with inflation.
Another group that could see bigger refunds are low-income families with children, given an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit. The maximum credit for the 2023 tax year is $7,430, up from $6,935 the prior year.
But Social Security beneficiaries may get hit with higher taxes, Jaeger warned. That’s because the threshold above which retirees must pay taxes on their Social Security isn’t adjusted for inflation, remaining at a level that hasn’t changed since 1984.
When will I get my tax refund?
The IRS will kick off the new tax filing season on January 29, which means that taxpayers will have between that date and April 15 to file their returns. If you need more time, you can request an extension, which gives you until mid-October to file.
Residents of Maine and Massachusetts have until April 17 to file their taxes because of state holidays, and people living in federally declared disaster areas may also have more time to file.
Most taxpayers get their refunds within 21 days. People who file their taxes as soon as possible on January 29 should get their payments by February 19.
However, the IRS cautions that isn’t guaranteed, noting that some returns may take more time to review. The IRS said the best way to check the status of your refund is to visit Where’s My Refund? on IRS.gov or the IRS2Go app.
The escalating fighting between Israel and Hezbollah continued Saturday as both sides traded strikes as the war in Gaza nears one year.
The Israel Defense Forces said its air force struck Hezbollah fighters inside a mosque in southern Lebanon that they said was used as a command center to “plan and execute terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel.”
The mosque was adjacent to Salah Ghandour Hospital in the town of Bint Jbeil. The hospital said in a statement that Israeli forces had shelled it after being warned to evacuate. The shelling “resulted in nine members of the medical and nursing staff being injured, most of them seriously,” while most of the medical staff were evacuated. On Thursday, the World Health Organization said 28 health workers in Lebanon had been killed in the past 24 hours.
ANWAR AMRO/AFP via Getty Images
At the same time, 12 Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, including one that badly damaged a large hall Hezbollah used to hold ceremonies, Lebanon’s state news agency said.
Later in the day, more strikes hit the area, from which tens of thousands of people have fled over the past two weeks.
Israeli airstrikes also hit areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, according to state media. At least six people were killed, according to NNA.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it launched a series of rockets at an Israeli air base near Haifa, about 30 miles from the Lebanese border. Israeli police said fragments of interceptors fell in several sites but no injuries were reported, according to the Associated Press.
Israel has sharply expanded its strikes on Lebanon in recent weeks after nearly a year of exchanging fire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah — long designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., Israel and many other nations. The IDF has been carrying out nightly bombardment of Beirut’s once densely populated southern suburbs, a stronghold of Hezbollah. Overnight, a military spokesman issued three alerts for residents there to evacuate.
Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu via Getty Images
Nearly a week of Israeli ground operations in southern Lebanon, near Israel’s northern border, and two weeks of airstrikes in that region and in southern Beirut — both Hezbollah strongholds — had killed more than 2,000 people, the health ministry said. More than 1 million people have been driven from their homes, including tens of thousands under Israel evacuation orders in almost 100 towns and villages near the border.
Hezbollah started launching those attacks in support of its ideological ally Hamas, which is also backed by Iran, the day after Hamas sparked the ongoing war in Gaza with its Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel. The IDF says Hezbollah militants have fired over 10,000 rockets across the border since Oct. 8, 2023. The vast majority of them have been intercepted by Israel’s advanced missile defense systems.
Israel conducts more ground raids
The Israeli military said on Saturday its special forces were carrying out ground raids against Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon, destroying missiles, launchpads, watchtowers and weapons storage facilities. The military said troops also dismantled tunnel shafts that Hezbollah used to approach the Israeli border.
Some 1.2 million people have been driven from their homes since Israel escalated its strikes in late September aiming to cripple Hezbollah and push it away from the countries’ shared border. On Tuesday, Israel launched what it calls a limited ground operation into southern Lebanon.
Nine Israeli troops have been killed in close fighting in the area in the past few days, which is saturated with arms and explosives, the military said.
Americans attempt to leave Lebanon
The U.S. government has warned Americans not to travel to Lebanon since mid-September and urged any citizens in the country to leave via commercial travel routes. As of Friday night, the U.S. State Department has assisted approximately 500 U.S. citizens, permanent residents and their families to leave Lebanon on flights organized by the agency.
Other nations are also working to evacuate their residents from Lebanon. Germany has evacuated 460 citizens on German military flights, while a Dutch military transport plane carried more than 100 citizens out of Lebanon. There were also citizens of Belgium, Finland and Ireland who were repatriated on that flight.
ROB ENGELAAR/ANP/AFP via Getty Images
“It’s great that these people are safely back in the Netherlands. These have been tense times for them,” Christiaan Rebergen, secretary-general of the foreign ministry, said after they landed Friday.
Fighting ongoing in Gaza
Palestinian medical officials say Israeli strikes in northern and central Gaza early Saturday have killed at least nine people, including two children.
One strike hit a group of people in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, killing at least five people, including two children, according to the Health Ministry’s Ambulance and Emergency service.
Another strike hit a house in the northern part of Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least four people, the Awda hospital said. The strike also left a number of wounded people, it said.
The Israeli military did not have any immediate comment on the strikes but has long accused Hamas of operating from within civilian areas.
Earlier in the day, the Israeli military had warned residents in parts of central Gaza to evacuate, saying its forces would soon operate there in response to Palestinian militants.
The warnings cover areas along a strategic corridor in central Gaza, which was at the heart of obstacles to a ceasefire deal earlier this summer. The military warned Palestinians in areas of Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps, located along the Netzarim corridor, to evacuate to an along Gaza’s shore called Muwasi, which the military has designated a humanitarian zone. It’s unclear how many Palestinians are currently living in the areas affected by the order, parts of which were evacuated previously.
Almost 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during the almost year-long war, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths.
CBS News
1-month-old twins who died with mother believed to be the youngest-known Hurricane Helene victims
Month-old twin boys are believed to be the youngest known victims of Hurricane Helene. The boys died alongside their mother last week when a large tree fell through the roof of their home in Thomson, Georgia.
Obie Williams, grandfather of the twins, said he could hear babies crying and branches battering the windows when he spoke with his daughter, Kobe Williams, 27, on the phone last week as the storm tore through Georgia.
The single mother had been sitting in bed holding sons Khyzier and Khazmir and chatting on the phone with various family members while the storm raged outside.
AP
Kobe’s mother, Mary Jones, was staying with her daughter, helping her take care of the babies. She was on the other side of the trailer home when she heard a loud crash as a tree fell through the roof of her daughter’s bedroom.
“Kobe, Kobe, answer me, please,” Jones cried out in desperation, but she received no response.
Kobe and the twins were found dead.
“I’d seen pictures when they were born and pictures every day since, but I hadn’t made it out there yet to meet them,” Obie Williams told The Associated Press days after the storm ravaged eastern Georgia. “Now I’ll never get to meet my grandsons. It’s devastating.”
The babies, born Aug. 20, are the youngest known victims of a storm that had claimed more than 200 lives across Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and the Carolinas. Among the other young victims are a 7-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy from about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south in Washington County, Georgia.
“She was so excited to be a mother of those beautiful twin boys,” said Chiquita Jones-Hampton, Kobe’ Jones’ niece. “She was doing such a good job and was so proud to be their mom.”
Jones-Hampton, who considered Kobe a sister, said the family is in shock and heartbroken.
In Obie Williams’ home city of Augusta, 30 miles east of his daughter’s home in Thomson, power lines stretched along the sidewalks, tree branches blocked the roads and utility poles lay cracked and broken. The debris left him trapped in his neighborhood near the South Carolina border for a little over a day after the storm barreled through.
He said one of his sons dodged fallen trees and downed power lines to check on Kobe, and he could barely bear to tell his father what he found.
Many of his 14 other children are still without power in their homes across Georgia. Some have sought refuge in Atlanta, and others have traveled to Augusta to see their father and mourn together, he said.
He described his daughter as a lovable, social and strong woman. She always had a smile and loved to make people laugh, he said.
And she loved to dance, Jones-Hampton said.
“That was my baby,” Williams said. “And everybody loved her.”
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