It’s a double-whammy for the U.S. taxpayer. Bloomberg notes that not only are many Americans writing yet another check to Uncle Sam this tax season, they’re also paying more to have someone handle their returns. The Labor Department’s consumer-price index for tax return preparation rose 2.4 percent, the third-biggest monthly gain ever, to a record in March.
Having just filed his 2016 taxes, a Zero Hedge reader submits the following bizarre story.
On January 20, the reader filed his Federal tax return using Tim Geithner's favorite TurboTax software, which the IRS formally accepted three days later, on January 24. One week later, on January 31, the IRS made an automatic deposit into the reader's bank account, who then used the refund to pay down his credit card debt the very next day.