If you got a federal tax refund the last two filing seasons, chances are that your check from Uncle Sam this year was smaller.
The average tax refund amount through the end of April was $2,716.
That's $106 less than the average refund amount issued at around the same time last year, according to the latest Internal Refund Service 2012 tax filing season data.
It's also this week's By the Numbers figure.
Taxpayers who had their refunds directly deposited averaged slightly larger checks: $2,923.
[1]Results for 2011 vary from those posted last year because certain results were totaled on different days of the week in 2012 than in previous years.
But even refunds sent straight to taxpayer accounts were smaller this filing season than in 2011, dropping from an average of $3,044 at the end of the previous April to $2,923 this year.
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Mark Randall @ tax relief
That average is not as much as I expected to be this year. Do you think that it will increase next year?