- Regina Morrison Newman is a Shelby County Trustee
Now that the holidays are behind us, many people turn their attention to their income taxes, particularly if they expect a large refund. “Professional” tax preparers know this and stand ready to “help” you get your refund faster.
What you may not realize is that most of these tax preparers are offering you a loan against your future refund. If the IRS later disagrees with the refund amount you received as a loan, you will have to repay the loan.
Many people who take advantage of these rapid refund loans have already spent the money by that time, and it would be a real hardship to try to pay it back. Many of these “tax preparers” are happy to extend you “terms” to repay that loan, including interest and fees. Now you have a payday loan that you didn’t want or budget for.
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Also, when some preparers prepare and submit your tax return for your refund, they provide their own bank account information to the IRS as your bank account of record. Ask yourself why that matters. Recently, it delayed millions of people from receiving their pandemic relief and stimulus funds. The Federal government sent those stimulus funds out via direct deposit to all bank accounts the IRS had on record for citizens.
Unfortunately for those citizens who allowed tax preparers to list the preparers’ bank account and get their tax…
