I was just reading a recent thread posted in this sub about the IRS workers not working due to the shutdown (understandably), thus returns will likely take longer. As I scrolled through the comments, I found a conversation and the gist of it was that if you get a tax return, it's basically lending the government money? I'm 23 and have been filing independently for a couple of years now, and always looked forward to my returns because hey, it's money! But having read this I'm just very confused, and bummed that this was never really explained to me before along with many other aspects of finances and I've been self-teaching, so to speak. I'm just an unmarried person working full time at an hourly low-paying job. I'm not a student, and the only "Credit" I qualified for was for contributing to a Roth IRA. And while my refunds have never been "huge", they've been over $1000 in the past couple of years.
So, getting a refund is bad? And why is not owing nor getting money back a good thing in the first place? How does one get as close to "$0 owed/returned refunded" as possible and what things can I do to achieve that? I feel silly asking, but dumb questions are better than no questions and I'd rather learn everything I can/should know while I'm still young and planning my future. Thanks! (If you wanna go ahead and ELI5, that'd be awesome haha)
Not sure what's up with the downvotes. I literally posted this because I knew nothing and have never been taught much regarding taxes, and want to learn.
Edit: Wow, didn’t expect this to get that much attention. Thank you guys so much for all of the informative responses! I really appreciate it!!
Submitted January 23, 2019 at 05:07PM by JacqiPro13 http://bit.ly/2UazK6s
