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Tax Refunds, A Habitual Health Problem

NPR

More than a hundred million taxpayers will get a refund from the Treasury this year, and the average refund is about three thousand dollars. Of tax filers who do get a refund, it's the biggest cash infusion of the year for forty percent of them.

That sounds cool, but it means the average American taxpayer has effectively lent the government three grand until the refund hit their bank account — interest free.

Meanwhile, many of those taxpayers are either paying high interest rates on debt of their own or putting off the healthcare they need.

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Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.
Cardiff Garcia is a co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money podcast, along with Stacey Vanek Smith. He joined NPR in November 2017.