SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — Some viewers tell Newschannel 9 their tax refunds are lower this year, and local accountant Kathleen Kaminski said there are a few reasons why that could be.

Kathleen Kaminski is a Certified Public Accountant and Senior Manager at Grossman St. Amour Certified Public Accountants in Syracuse. She explains why some could be seeing lower refunds.

“In 2021 we had federal stimulus payments that expired, there was an advanced child tax credit that expired and that child tax credit was also increased by $1,000 and that no longer exists, and in the prior year there was a special additional standard deduction for charitable donations that too has expired.”

Kaminski said to avoid owing money, neighbors should focus on the amount of federal income tax withheld from their paycheck, especially if they’re getting back into the workforce.

“The number of part-time jobs, the withholding on a part-time job is often times less than withholding on a full-time job,” said Kaminski. “So if a taxpayer has three or four part-time jobs over the year, the withholdings at the end of the year are going to be much less than if they have one full-time job and that’s going to result in coming up short when they file their 2023 tax return.”

She also mentions two credits some neighbors may not know about. One is a $200.00 credit for active volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers.

The other is the New York State Real Property Tax Relief credit. Kaminski says in order to qualify for that, your gross income needs to be $250,000 or less, you have to own a home and pay property taxes, be eligible for STAR credit in 2022, and your real property taxes need to exceed 6% of your income. Anyone who checks off all these boxes, could get up to $350.00.