re: Why are people excited about a tax refund?

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After my first year of working, I upped my allowances and still got a sizable refund, so I've upped by another one again for this year.

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My employer has a paycheck calculator tool on the HR website that allows you to play with your allowances to determine what your check and withholding would be each pay period. There are other useful calculators online, even on the IRS website I believe, that can keep you up to date with your withholdings for the year.

I'm paid a small salary, but most of my income is commission, and as a result, I get 14 set paychecks throughout the year, and 12 commission checks. Our payroll computer apparently has an issue with the disparity and taxes the shite out of my commission checks as if I make that amount of money each period. I manually control my withholdings and update them each quarter. As it stands, I usually claim single with 99 allowances, and then withhold an additional $700 per pay period. It damn near eliminates my salary-only paychecks, but it puts me almost exactly where I need to be at year-end.