Accountant predicts bigger tax refunds next year

A local tax accountant says tax refunds will likely be much bigger next year for the middle class.

Ron Duersch has prepared about 60 tax returns so far this year. He has a program that shows what people would be paying in taxes on their 2017 returns if the new 2018 rules had applied.

Duersch was surprised at the amount of money most of his clients would have saved.

“In just about all cases there is an increase in the tax refund or a decrease in the tax of anywhere between a few hundred dollars and up to a few thousand dollars,” Duersch said. “In fact I did one yesterday that was over $3,000.”

That particular client that made $55,000 a year would have received a refund of over $7,000 rather than $4,000.

Also, the standard deduction almost doubles to $24,000. Duersch says that’s high enough that many of his clients won’t need to go to the trouble of itemizing things like mortgage interest and charitable contributions because it won’t mean a bigger tax return.

It’s unclear how your state taxes may change because the legislature hasn’t made a final decision on that yet.