Credit Professional 2018 Spring_2018_magazine | Page 4

Get Ahead With These Wise Uses
For Your Tax Refund
By Ann Berry, Ph.D., MBA, RFG
Family Economics Specialist, UT Extension
and
Amy H. Elizer, Ed.D.
Extension Agent and County Director, UT Extension
For some people getting a tax
refund feels like winning the
lottery. Others view the refund
as a type of savings account
that keeps them from spending.
Either way, what it really
means is that they allowed
Uncle Sam to hold their money
throughout the year rather
than having it to spend or save
themselves. By the end of
December 2017, the IRS had
distributed over 100 million
individual tax refunds for
the year with each refund
averaging $2,895.
It’s important to resist the
temptation to blow this money.
Instead, now is a great time to
use your refund to improve
your financial future.
withholding on W2’s to make
has a different strategy that can
What you need to do to improve sure enough taxes will be taken be addressed with a tax refund.
your financial future is
out for 2018 so you don’t get a
dependent upon your current
surprise next tax season.
If you live from one paycheck
status. To make wise use of
to the next or have little in
your tax refund it is important Basic guidelines are to use part savings, do yourself a favor and
to have a plan. While tax laws
of your refund to pay down
start an emergency fund. This
have changed and all the
debt, save some of it, and spend fund can take up the slack if
repercussions are yet unknown, some of it. People can find
you hit a bump in your
one thing is certain—all
themselves in various financial
financial road.
taxpayers need to check their
situations, though, and each
Continued on page 4
Spring 2018
3
The Credit Professional