Main Street Dollars

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A federal tax refund can arrive smaller than the number on the return for two very different reasons, and only one of them has anything to do with the IRS. The first is a correction to the return itself — a math error, a disallowed credit, an old tax bill. The second is a debt…

The average tax refund ran $3,276, up $337 from last season

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in Refunds

By the time the IRS closed the books on its final weekly tally of the 2026 filing season, the count that ran through May 8, the average individual refund stood at $3,276, up $337 from the $2,939 average at the same point in the 2025 season. That comparison comes from the agency’s own season-ending data…

Treasury has proposed making taxpayers swear under penalty of perjury before a refundable credit is paid out

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Two federal agencies have proposed making taxpayers sign a new perjury declaration before they can collect the refundable portion of four common tax credits, tying eligibility for that money to citizenship or immigration status for what would be the first time inside the individual tax code. The rule is not in effect, and no return…

Extension filers have until October 15, and a return more than 60 days late carries a minimum $525 penalty

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in Rule Changes

Roughly 19 million taxpayers asked the IRS for extra time to file their 2025 return this year, and that borrowed time runs out on October 15. For most of them the stakes are more than a scolding letter — a return that arrives more than 60 days after that date now triggers a minimum penalty…

A failed direct deposit brings IRS notice CP53E and 30 days to supply bank details.

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in Refunds

The IRS’s shutdown of paper refund checks turned one ordinary filing mistake, a bad bank routing number, into a notice with its own name and its own clock: CP53E, with exactly 30 days attached to fix it. Anyone who’s filed a return expecting a refund and instead found a notice in the mailbox is dealing…

The senior deduction is available whether a filer itemizes or takes the standard deduction.

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Most tax breaks in the federal code force a choice: itemize specific expenses on Schedule A, or take the standard deduction and skip the itemizing altogether. The Internal Revenue Service has now confirmed that the new enhanced deduction for people 65 and older breaks that pattern. A taxpayer doesn’t have to give up the standard…

A couple where both spouses qualify can deduct $12,000, and the break ends after 2028.

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Married couples doing their own tax math this filing season are running into a provision that didn’t exist on returns before 2025: an extra deduction set aside for people 65 and older, doubled when both spouses qualify for it. The Internal Revenue Service laid out the mechanics in a tax tip published this February, and…

The senior deduction is gone entirely once a single filer’s income reaches $175,000.

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Most tax breaks that shrink with income do it so gradually that nobody notices the exact point where they hit zero. The new deduction for taxpayers 65 and older isn’t built that way. The law behind it sets a specific, calculable income level where the break disappears completely, and for a single filer that level…

Turning 65 by the last day of 2026 opens the $6,000 senior deduction, meaning a birthday before January 2, 1962.

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December 31, 2026 does something no other date on the calendar does for this deduction: it decides, based on nothing but the day someone was born, who gets the new $6,000 senior deduction on their next return and who has to wait another year to qualify. The rule tests a taxpayer’s age on the very…

Getting no 1099-K does not make the income tax-free, and the IRS still expects it reported.

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