Lower tax refunds are “bad news” for the U.S. economy, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) told Hill.TV on Thursday.
“When you trust what leadership, in this case the president, promised [to] change the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) process for it, it becomes not only disappointing, it affects the economy,” Beatty, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, told hosts Krystal Ball and Shermichael Singleton on “Rising.”
“When people are affected they don’t spend as much. If you don’t have the dollars coming in, and you’re not getting the returns, certainly, it affects the bottom line, and that’s the economy,” she continued.
“People are upset about it. We receive calls about people wanting to know … if they were going to get their money, and how much would those dollars be,” she said. “At the end of the day it was not good news, it was bad news.”
Early data released from the IRS this week showed taxpayers, so far, were seeing lower tax refunds overall this year.
A report for the week ending Feb. 1 showed that refunds were 8.4 percent lower than last year.
The lower refunds could be a bad omen for President Trump and Republicans, who have touted their tax policy.
The Treasury Department responded to the report, urging Americans not to read too much into coverage of the initial report.
“News reports on reduction in IRS filings & refunds are misleading,” the department tweeted. “Refunds are consistent with 2017 levels and down slightly from 2018 based on a small initial sample from only a few days of data.”
— Julia Manchester
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