Tax season is underway, and it can be a real headache for millions of taxpayers who are dealing with all those numbers dancing back and forth on their returns. If you have already sent your papers, you are probably in suspense, waiting for the IRS to send your long-awaited refund, but sometimes not everything is good news.
Don’t get your hopes up… there are several reasons why that refund could go up in smoke. Remember that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) doesn’t forget every dollar you owe them. If you carry federal tax debts from past years, forget about the refund. They will make you pay what you owe before you can move to the next tax year and claim tax refunds.
Why might your wallet stay empty? The IRS doesn’t give away money out of thin air.
If you work on your own (freelancer, entrepreneur, etc.), things get very complicated. Since you don’t have a boss to withhold taxes from you, you have to pay estimates every three months. If you skipped that, get ready: at the end of the year, instead of receiving, you will have to give up more money. And goodbye to the dream refund!
Did you have like three different jobs this year? Be careful, buddy. If in each job they did not calculate the withholdings correctly, when you make the declaration you may get angry: you would owe more than you thought and your refund evaporates. It’s like juggling numbers… and no safety net.
Be careful with family themes. If you owe months of child support, the IRS doesn’t hesitate to grab your refund to catch up. And not only that: if you have debts with the state (local taxes or even unemployment compensation that you did not pay), they can also scan your wool.
Here’s a random fact: there is a rumor that they want to eliminate paper checks to save $750 million a year. If that ends up happening, you will have to process direct deposit as your payment method.
Where’s my refund? Your check may be as big as $3,100
Now, if you’re madly checking your account every five minutes, the IRS has a “Where’s My Refund?” tool. Go to their page, enter your information and that’s it: it tells you if your money is on the way, we’ll see or if there was a problem.
Average IRS tax refunds in 2025 will likely be around $3,100, based on historical data and recent trends. The final average is likely to be similar to the $3,138 in 2024, but could vary depending on economic and legal changes.