Timeline for Does my tax refund need to be as close to zero dollars as possible?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 26, 2016 at 20:27 | comment | added | Dunk | @blankip - IOW, you don't want the answers centered around that which is most applicable to the overwhelming majority of people. | |
| Feb 20, 2016 at 1:15 | history | edited | JTP - Apologise to Monica♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 407 characters in body
|
| Feb 18, 2016 at 15:39 | comment | added | blankip | @DilipSarwate - I like the advice on this site. But I don't like that most of it is centered around those who can't control their spending habits. I think answers should give the ideal preference, not what I would do if I were in debt and had nothing in the bank. | |
| Feb 18, 2016 at 15:03 | comment | added | Dilip Sarwate | @blankip Congratulations on being in a state of financial health that far too many Americans do not even believe can be found in Nature any more. | |
| Feb 18, 2016 at 5:50 | comment | added | blankip | @DilipSarwate - I get a couple thousand back in taxes every year. I max out my 401k, I have some money in stocks and zero cc debt... The money I get in taxes I would never invest so it is either have it sitting in the bank earning almost nothing or the refund. I don't think my buying habits would change much if the money was their monthly or not but my wife definitely likes to see a certain amount in savings and the low point of our savings every year does coincide with xmas... so we save more. We never buy something based on our return, it just replenishes savings. | |
| Feb 18, 2016 at 4:29 | comment | added | Joel | @DilipSarwate This is what I was thinking about - the stimulus checks under Bush were mostly just used to pay off debt, not actually spent, which was not the intent. | |
| Feb 18, 2016 at 3:49 | comment | added | Dilip Sarwate | @Joel I have no documentary evidence but plenty of anecdotal evidence from friends, family, etc as well as with people that I meet through a money management advice program that I am involved with (I am an advisor). Tax refunds have never been used to pay down credit card debt but always spent on something else. YMMV. | |
| Feb 18, 2016 at 0:58 | comment | added | Joel | @DilipSarwate Do you have a reference that it's usually blown away on an extravagant purchase? With some people this "enforced saving" will be good - otherwise they'd spend it all when they got it and end up in the same amount of credit card debt at the end of the year, but without the "windfall" to help pay it off. If people have the discipline this is not good, but my impression is the people who get into credit card debt are disproportionately those who don't have this discipline (not always, but a higher proportion). I'd love to see actual data on this rather than "my impression". | |
| Feb 18, 2016 at 0:07 | comment | added | JTP - Apologise to Monica♦ | @blankip - if you wish to reduce his logic to "right now your alternative investing choices are either risky or near 0%. If you have no high rate debt, this is a non-issue." I'd back off. My problem is that he ignores this outright, while any google search will tell you about all the card holders carrying debt month to month. | |
| Feb 17, 2016 at 23:13 | comment | added | blankip | If you take out the part of the credit card debt I have to agree with the JH CTO. You aren't getting any return on your money in a bank these days. So really it is more like a yearly savings fund. Will people splurge part of their tax refund. Maybe but I think they would be far less likely to spend it this way opposed to coming in monthly. When doing budgets you wouldn't account for this. If you set it to equal zero your balance sheet will be close to 0 at end of year. Here you are gaining money which in most cases goes to unexpected things or savings. | |
| Feb 17, 2016 at 0:52 | history | edited | JTP - Apologise to Monica♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 1130 characters in body
|
| Feb 16, 2016 at 21:12 | history | edited | JTP - Apologise to Monica♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 507 characters in body
|
| Feb 15, 2016 at 23:23 | comment | added | Dilip Sarwate | Worse yet, that $1000 refund is more often than not blown away on extravagant purchases (it is found money, after all!) instead of being used to pay down that credit-card debt. | |
| Feb 15, 2016 at 21:11 | comment | added | JTP - Apologise to Monica♦ | Nice analogy, Steve | |
| Feb 15, 2016 at 20:52 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | Maybe if your coworker had engaged "his guy" from the start of the tax year, instead of only to file his return, then he'd be where you are. He's basically bragging that he hired a guy to haul a huge truckload of garbage out of his front yard. Yes, that's great, but people who don't dump their garbage in their front yard don't need to do it. So pay a guy to tell you (or figure out for yourself) a better way to deal with garbage. | |
| Feb 15, 2016 at 15:22 | history | answered | JTP - Apologise to Monica♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |