Except the overall tax paid for the year has nothing to do with the refund you get. A refund just means you overpaid in withholding the prior year. Even if you got a smaller refund , that doesn’t mean you paid as much in taxes. That certainly happened for me; I got hit by the SALT changes and ended up without a refund, but comparing my returns I paid less in taxes than I did the last year despite making more.
The ideal situation is that you pay $0 and get a refund of $0 at tax time. The IRS is revising withholding forms now to help reach this goal.
The ideal situation is that you pay $0 and get a refund of $0 at tax time. The IRS is revising withholding forms now to help reach this goal.