Don’t do it on the basis of the refund, do it on the basis of tax rate.
Your refund amount is mostly irrelevant. It only reflects if you had too much withheld, or too little withheld.
Instead, compare your federal tax rate from last year (2017 filed in 2018) to this year (2018 filed in 2019).
Example:
In 2017 you made $100,000, owed $20,000, had $22,000 withheld, and got back a $2,000 refund.
In 2018 you made $100,000, owed $20,000, had $18,000 withheld, and must pay in $2,000.
Your refund went from +2000 to -2000 owed, wahhh!!!
But your federal tax burden stayed the same — 20%. The problem wasn’t your tax rate going up, the problem was the amount withheld out of each check.
(a conspiracy theory of the Trump IRS issuing funky withholding tables to goose everybody’s paychecks leading up to the 2018 election to try and get more to vote Republican by tricking them into thinking they got a tax cut is a worthy discussion, but not in the same breath as your tax rate going up)
Instead, compare your tax rate paid in 2017 to the rate paid in 2018, (federal only).
I’ll go first. And give both federal percent on gross income (everything earned) and adjusted gross income (after deductions). No state or local since taxes that varies widely and is apple to oranges.
Tax year 2017: Fed on gross=10.7%, adjgross=16.1%
Tax year 2018: Fed on gross=09.3%, adjgross=14.2%
I own nothing and the only deduction was the standard.
My taxes went down 1.9%.
Trump still sucks. Bigly.
(edit)
I have added a sentence at the beginning because my point was not real clear.
The gripes should flow, but based on tax rate rather than refund amount.
I know there are two philosophies on getting a refund:
a. Woohoo, I got a refund (and gave Uncle Sam an interest free loan which I could have used to pay on a high interest credit card and realize 10% additional savings.)
b. I paid in the right amount (but don’t have a lump sum coming to deal with a major purchase because the $20 extra per week simply disappeared into my budget and casual spending.)
I wasn’t addressing that argument. Just pointing out that refunds don’t reflect tax rate, and the gripes should be based on tax rate. Not that I think paying taxes is bad. If we all pay our fair share we can buy civilization. But don’t tell us the average tax will go down when what you mean is a billionaire’s tax will go down and 100,000 average taxes will go up to compensate. (similar to the average net worth of the patrons in a bar going above a billion dollars if Bill Gates walks in).