Tax Refund Anticipation Loans

Have you ever filed your tax return and hoped you could get your hands on your refund early? You're not alone. In fact, this has been a common practice in recent years. Most large tax preparers would offer what's called a tax refund anticipation loan. How it works is they determine how much of a refund you'll be receiving when filing your taxes and then lend you the money immediately so that you don't have to wait a few weeks for the IRS to send you a check. Then when your refund actually does come in it goes towards paying off the loan, less any fees. Sounds good, right?

Well, the problem that this is an expensive proposition. Sometimes they will charge you fees in excess of a few hundred dollars just to get your hands on your tax refund a week or two early. This often translates into an APR well over one-hundred percent. Would you willingly get a loan with a 200% APR? Of course not, but that's exactly what these short-term tax refund loans give you.

Thankfully, the IRS recently issued a statement that says they plan on eliminating the information they used to send to tax preparation services that would allow them to underwrite these tax refund loans. That doesn't mean companies will need stop offering them, but it may curb their wide availability in the coming tax season. That's good news because it's a form of predatory lending not much different than payday loans. Learn more about these loans and what the IRS has to say about them.