Beginning in 2017, if you claim the EITC or ACTC on your tax return, the IRS must hold your refund until Feb. 15. This new law requires the IRS to hold the entire refund — even the portion not associated with the EITC or ACTC. Like previous years, some tax refunds may be held if there are questions about the tax return or the IRS needs more information.

While the IRS will begin to issue EITC/ACTC refunds starting Feb. 15, you should not count on actually seeing your refund until the last week of February — if you chose direct deposit or a debit card and there are no processing issues with your tax return.

Yes, if you meet the requirements, you may claim:

1. The Earned Income Credit

Generally, a child must live with you in the United States for more than half of the tax year to be a qualifying child. You may treat a child who was born alive or died in 2016 as having lived with you for more than half of 2016 if your main home was the child’s m…[Read more]

Yes, you can use Form 1040EZ, Income Tax Return for Single and Joint Filers With No Dependents, to claim the earned income credit (EIC), provided you don’t have a qualifying child and your investment income is $3,400 or less (for 2016). Your investment income is the total amount of interest from line 2 of Form 1040EZ and any tax-exempt…[Read more]

Social security benefits include monthly retirement, survivor and disability benefits. They don’t include supplemental security income (SSI) payments, which aren’t taxable. The net amount of social security benefits that you receive from the Social Security Administration is reported in Box 5 of Form SSA-1099, Social Security Benefit Statement,…[Read more]

You must make estimated tax payments for the current tax year if both of the following apply:

You expect to owe at least $1,000 in tax for the current tax year after subtracting your withholding and refundable credits.
You expect your withholding and refundable credits to be less than the smaller of:
90% of the tax to be shown on your current…[Read more]

A split refund lets you divide your refund, in any proportion you want, and direct deposit the funds into up to three different accounts with U.S. financial institutions. Use Form 8888, Allocation of Refund (Including Savings Bond Purchases), to request to have your refund split or to use part or all of your refund to buy up to $5,000 in paper or…[Read more]