Some facts for tax season

I volunteer for Tax-Aide, and have been doing taxes for a couple of weeks. I have seen some falsehoods being posted on Facebook about taxes and refunds. I didn't like the new tax bill, but I also don't like lies.

Usually when people's refunds are lower, it's because the withholding tables used last year caused less withholding, because they were meant to make withholding close to what was owed. People got more money during the year, leading to a lower refund. Many people prefer to have more withheld and get a bigger refund, but that doesn't mean people are paying more overall.

You can deduct medical expenses & property taxes. Because of the standard deduction being so much higher (while exemptions were deleted), more people will pay less by using the standard deduction than by itemizing than used to be the case. The purpose of the standard deduction is to enable most people not to have to itemize.