Reuters
President Donald Trump and Republicans in the House of Representatives hold sample tax forms in November 2017.
Tax refunds appear on track to come in similar to what they did last year, a Goldman Sachs analyst estimated in a report on Wednesday.
Goldman’s Alec Phillips takes a look at the data to date and notes it suggests refunds have fallen slightly compared to 2018. He notes aggregate refunds are down nearly 3% versus the prior year as of March 1 — but said the final amount is expected to be closer to last year’s than it is now.
Refunds totaled nearly $285 billion during the tax filing season in 2018.
By now, Phillips wrote, many of the people who should have gotten larger refunds as a result of the Republican tax law enacted in December 2017 have probably already received them. Goldman expects that around two-thirds of refunds related to the child tax credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit were made in February, he noted.
Read: The outrage over plunging tax refunds is premature — let’s wait for the facts
Given the expected similar level of tax refunds, Phillips said, consumer spending for the first half of the year shouldn’t be meaningfully affected.
Also read: Key Republican raises alarm about hiking corporate taxes to pay for infrastructure overhaul.
