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boomer blows tax "refund" on travel, wishes trump were helping poor instead
| UN peacekeeper | 04/04/26 |
| UN peacekeeper | 04/04/26 |
| UN peacekeeper | 04/04/26 |
| UN peacekeeper | 04/04/26 |
| UN peacekeeper | 04/04/26 |
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Date: April 4th, 2026 2:49 PM Author: UN peacekeeper Before Kim Harkins, 73, and her husband retired, they made good money, around $300,000 a year, she said. In retirement, like many Americans, they live off their savings, meaning their income is smaller than it used to be. Ms. Harkins said she and her husband had an income of about $100,000 last year, the sum of their Social Security benefits, annuity payments and withdrawals from their retirement accounts.
“We’re very comfortable,” Ms. Harkins said, adding that she and her husband own three homes across the country. “On paper, we’re millionaires. We have a boat.”
Ms. Harkins said she was ambivalent to find that the new deduction for older Americans resulted in a $5,384 tax refund for her this year. She said she would use the money on a trip to Ireland she had planned for later this year.
“It’s embarrassing to get that money back,” she said, adding that she would rather see her tax money spent “on poverty programs and food and housing.” |
Date: April 4th, 2026 2:50 PM Author: UN peacekeeper Trent Bohacz, a 43-year-old corporate executive from Prospect Heights, Ill., knew that he was primed to benefit from the higher limit on the state and local tax deduction. He and his wife made around $515,000 last year and paid about $39,000 in state and local taxes.
But he was still surprised by the $14,000 refund he received from the I.R.S. “I thought it could be five figures, but it was still a little more, and a welcome surprise,” Mr. Bohacz said. He said he planned to put the money toward paying for a new car for his 16-year-old daughter.
“We are, by definition, the people that benefited the most,” he said. |
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Date: April 4th, 2026 2:50 PM Author: UN peacekeeper Matt Dangel, a 39-year-old machinist, treats his annual tax refund like a “mini-savings account,” he said. He also intentionally withholds more taxes from every paycheck than is necessary, he said, using the roughly $6,000 he gets back every year to cover bills like his property taxes, homeowners insurance and car registration.
Mr. Dangel, who said he and his wife together make around $98,000 a year, regularly works overtime. Given that Mr. Trump has branded his new tax break as “no tax on overtime,” Mr. Dangel said, he was looking forward to a much larger refund than usual.
But as he dug into the fine print of the tax break, he realized that the new deduction applies only to a slice of his overtime earnings. And as with the tips deduction, the payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare are unaffected by the overtime tax break. Ultimately, said Mr. Dangel, who lives in Scotland, S.D., his refund was just $120 more than it was last year, though it was still enough to cover the cost of new phones for him and his wife.
“I was certainly expecting there to be more than $120 worth,” he said. |
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Date: April 4th, 2026 2:51 PM Author: UN peacekeeper Ashley Norwood’s ears perked up when she first heard about President Trump’s campaign promises to not tax tips and overtime. As a bartender, Mrs. Norwood earns plenty of tips, and her husband, a diesel technician, works a lot of overtime. Mr. Trump’s tax cuts seemed tailor-made to help her family of five, and Mrs. Norwood said she voted for Mr. Trump in 2024 largely because of them.
Even before the 37-year-old resident of Bluffton, S.C., filed her taxes this year, she and her husband had made a wish list for how they might spend their refund. After paying down debts, Mrs. Norwood hoped to have money left over to help pay for a family vacation and, maybe, splurge on a new bed.
The roughly $10,000 refund she ultimately received was more than enough. She bought an extra-large mattress called a Wyoming King; it was so big that her husband had to build a custom frame.
“We are not hurting financially,” Mrs. Norwood said, adding that her household income is roughly $200,000. “But it was really great to have that extra money and say, ‘We can pay off what we do owe and do something nice for ourselves and the family.’” |
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Date: April 4th, 2026 2:52 PM Author: UN peacekeeper Heather Brown, a scheduling manager for a home improvement company, looks forward to the beginning of tax season. She makes roughly $46,000 a year and says she relies on her tax refund to catch up on her heating and electricity bills from the winter. This year, she was planning to put some of the money she got back toward buying a new car.
She did not deduct any tips or overtime earnings on her taxes, and her roughly $1,800 refund this year ended up being much less than the $4,500 she got back last year. Now she is not sure how she is going to replace her beat-up 2006 Acura, which she doesn’t think can pass inspection this spring.
“So now we’re going to have to figure out where to tighten up in other areas so we can get that money a different way,” Ms. Brown, a 48-year-old resident of York, Pa., said. |