The theme for this week is: Tax time! CPAs don’t even like tax time (trust me, I’m married to one).

Mid-February is when you’ll want to kick your tax planning and prep into high gear so you can file your taxes and move on with your life.

Pretty soon, you’ll start seeing advertisements and promotions to grab some of those tax refund dollars that millions of Americans will receive this year.

Every year, I talk to people who gloat about their tax refund. They’re so excited about their mini-jackpot winnings from Uncle Sam, and I always regret to inform them that all a refund is a interest-free loan from you to the U.S. government.

That’s right - a tax refund is actually your money, not a free gift from the government. And on top of that, it’s free money that you loaned to the government all year, which they just paid back to you with 0% interest.

Stop loaning money to the government at an interest rate of 0 for the entire year!

If you have a sizeable refund each year, that should be a wakeup call for you to adjust your tax withholding on your paycheck in order to reduce your interest-free loan to Uncle Sam.

Now, what’s different about filing your taxes this year, is that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has such sweeping changes, that the proper withholding amount and the size of your refund are way more unpredictable this year.

Unfortunately, it’s too late to adjust your paycheck withholding for this tax season, but you can still change it for 2019 going forward. So pay close attention to your refund amount this year. If it’s more than a few hundred dollars, consider adjusting your withholding so you stop giving Uncle Sam more money than he needs!

The other perk of reducing your refund: If a fraudulent tax return is filed on your behalf and the thief gets your refund check, the stakes aren’t as high because you’re not out thousands of dollars, which can take months and plenty of hassle to get back.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow, we’re going to recap the week and I’m going to give you a little preview of next week’s theme.

My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip.

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