How to get a bigger refund this tax season

Dollar, dollar Jill, y'all. Cash rules everything around me. That's right, especially this time of year. This is MoneyWatch right now this morning. And we are talking about taxes, OK? So tax season has begun, and the IRS is now accepting and processing tax returns for 2025. And while you have until April 15th to submit your return, you may want to get started a little bit earlier, OK? So there are several new credits and deductions available this year. That's why we have CBS News business analyst Jill Schlesinger to explain all of this for us. How are you doing? I'm so psyched. This is going to be an amazing tax season. That's how I'm selling this, man. Are you buying? I'm buying it. All right. Good. Let's talk about it. So the one big, beautiful bill was signed into law last summer, and with it came some changes. What are those changes? Well, there's a ton of changes. So let's highlight four that I think are applicable to a lot of folks who are watching or listening to this. The first one is that there is an extra deduction for seniors. If you're over the age of 65, you get an extra six grand, which is big.

That is big.

Then there is this extra feature, which is no tax on tips up to a certain level, overtime up to a certain level, and car loan interest. I want to say something about these four things, though. They are tested by income. So if you make too much money, you don't get them. They may phase out, and they're temporary in nature. So 2025, which is last year, tax season through 2028. These four are very important. The IRS is flagging them as something to be aware of this season.

And IRS, they say that the tax refunds will be larger this year. Why is that?

Well, last year--

What does that mean, exactly? And you know, first of all, I hate a refund normally because it's like, oh, you just loaned Uncle Sam money for a whole year. You didn't get paid any interest. But this year, because that bill was passed in the middle of the summer, what happens is that all the changes are taking place, but your withholding hasn't. So a lot of people are going to find that they over-withheld for taxes. That will give them a bigger tax refund. Now, last year, we had an average of about 3,100 bucks. This year, it could be up to $4,000. And that is going to be very helpful for people who want to pay down their credit card debt and beef up their emergency reserve fund. All right, so remind us again what documents that we need to gather to prepare for our taxes. And you should start to really have all of them by the end of this week, but it's your W-2s, your 1099s if you're self-employed. There are interest that you might receive from a brokerage account. There are documents that you might have received because you received unemployment or pensions or required minimum distributions from your retirement accounts. You need all those documents. And if you have investment accounts that are not retirement plans, you might want to wait a couple of weeks, because a lot of the big investment firms, they will send out updated documents in the middle of February. And it is fine to actually go to the IRS and say, oops, I made a mistake. It's just a little bit of a pain in the neck to amend. Now, when it comes to getting it quickly, what are some of the steps.

OK, you have got to file electronically and use direct deposit. IRS says the fastest, most efficient way to get a refund, usually within 21 days, electronic filing, direct deposit, 21 days. You're a winner.

All right. No, you are a winner. I appreciate you. Thank you so much, Jill.