This year, as always, I am using Turbo Tax to do our taxes. My husband received a raise over the year of about $5,000/ year but that is the only difference and our tax return is less than 1/3 the size it was last year. Why is this?

No idea, but I've a feeling that, if we stick around, some newcomer will answer

Well I'm no newcomer , but my first guess would be that a raise of that size (which is HUGE), would have bumped y'all into the next tax bracket (or two even)

I was really fretting this year - my first year filing with no dependents And yes, my refund was about 1/5th of previous years, but at least I didn't have to pay

I'll also be waiting with bated breath to see if someone comes along with some fabulous way to enhance the income tax experience!

I don't know what you could mean when you talk about the size of your return! The smaller number of pages would mean that there were fewer schedules involved, which would suggest a revised filing status, other than a simple increased gross income. If, for instance your deductions were initially itemized, and your larger income resulted in the standard deduction being greater than your previous itemized deduction; common sense whould dictate that you would take the standard deduction. As a result there would be no need for the Schedule A page.

There are many possible explanations for your REFUND being smaller this year than it was last year. Tax brackets do not function in the manner described above (sorry Giz) and a $5000 raise did not cause some big tax increase for you. It simply doesn't work like that. There are 6 tax brackets in the US.

0 - $8025 from 0% to 10% tax
$8025 to 32550 from 10 to 15% tax
32550 to 78850 from 15% to 25% tax
78850 to 164550 from 25% to 28% tax
164550 to 357700 from 28% to 33% tax
and over 357700 from 33% to 35% tax

The scale is graduated such that you only pay the higher percentage tax rate on the amount that you are over the previous bracket. This is why when a bonus is received it is best to have a higher percentage of withholding taken from the bonus amount - the bonus will be over and above your normal pay so it is likely to be at a higher tax rate. The same applies to overtime work as well, and that is why there is a popular misconception that by earning extra money you are put into a higher bracket and can therefore lose money by jumping into a higher bracket. It isn't correct - you've only not withheld the proper amount for your overall earning for the year not been taxed more on all your earnings.

If you received a big refund last year, it could be that your husband had his work adjust the withholding amount such that you had a more appropriate amount of withholding. It could also be that you had less deductions this year and therefore had more taxable income and didn't change your withholding.

The other possibility is that you made an error on this year or last year's taxes. You may want to check both very carefully and try to find the differences.

The one thing I can assure you of is that a $5000 raise has not radically changed the percentage of taxes that you should pay. It is much more likely that something else has changed in your tax situation to cause the change in refund amount.