Why You Should Avoid Tax Refund Anticipation Loans
<p>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?</p> <p>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.</p> <p>Thankfully, the IRS recently issued a statement that says they plan on eliminating the information they used to send to tax&#160;preparation&#160;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&#160;availability&#160;in the coming tax season. That's good news because it's a form of predatory lending not much different than payday loans. <a href="http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/1hc&#038;zu=http://financialplan.about.com/od/taxplanning/a/Tax-Refund-Anticipation-Loans.htm">Learn more about these loans and what the IRS has to say about them</a>.</p><p style="background:#f5f3ef;border:1px solid #d5d0bf;clear:both;padding:.5em;"><a href="http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/1hc&#038;zu=http://financialplan.about.com/b/2012/02/10/why-you-should-avoid-tax-refund-anticipation-loans.htm">Why You Should Avoid Tax Refund Anticipation Loans</a> originally appeared on <a href="http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/1hc&#038;zu=http://financialplan.about.com/">About.com Financial Planning</a> on Friday, February 10th, 2012 at 17:28:48.</p><p><a href="http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/1hc&#038;zu=http://financialplan.about.com/b/2012/02/10/why-you-should-avoid-tax-refund-anticipation-loans.htm">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/1hc&#038;zu=http://financialplan.about.com/b/2012/02/10/why-you-should-avoid-tax-refund-anticipation-loans.htm#gB3">Comment</a> | <a href="http://financialplan.about.com/gi/pages/shareurl.htm?PG=http://financialplan.about.com/b/2012/02/10/why-you-should-avoid-tax-refund-anticipation-loans.htm&#038;zItl=Why You Should Avoid Tax Refund Anticipation Loans">Email this</a></p>