Because he’s a master of deductions!
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Minor gripe: the tax return is the paperwork that is sent in to the tax office (thus “returned”). And the tax refund is the overage which the tax office sends back to the taxpayer.
A huge return is a large stack of papers. A huge refund is a large direct-deposit onto one’s bank account.
To be fair, to have a large number of deductions you’re likely to also have a larger return as you’ll need extra lines no?
At least in the USA, not really. The federal income tax main form, Form 1040, has all the big-picture totals like taxable income, deductions, credits, computed tax, payments and withholdings, and finally the amount owed to or from the government. Some fraudsters that want to steal someone’s tax refund will in-fact file a fraudulent Form 1040 with a massively-inflated number in the deductions box, which then causes a large tax refund check to be mailed to the fraudster, who then absconds. Fortunately, this is much harder now because of cross-checks by the IRS, before issuing a refund.
For actually claiming the largest and most common deductions, taxpayers would attach Schedule A behind their Form 1040, and would compute their itemized deductions, such as state taxes (which they federal government mostly doesn’t tax, to avoid doubly taxing that income) and home mortgage loan interest. These are much harder for the IRS to verify, because that would require more cross checks into each state’s system.
Form 1040 is two sides of a sheet of paper. Schedule A is one side of a sheet of paper. Lots of taxpayers can in-fact file their taxes with no more than 5 sheets of paper, total. The tax changes in 2017 saved only about one sheet. This is not a thick envelope by any means, but quite frankly, e-file is free for the federal return so individuals rarely mail their return. Businesses and trusts, however, do still mail.
Groan. Upvoted.
