Estimated 2007 tax refunds

I have purchased Tax Cut and input the initial information that shows that my federal tax refund will be approximately $5,300. The state forms are not updated in Tax Cut yet but I went on the Georgia Department of revenue website and was able to determine that my state refund will be approximately $1,200. Both amounts are larger than last year’s refunds. I plan to use the entire amount to pay down debt. Most will go to the 0% balance on my Discover card but some will go to pay down my Amex. I loaded the Amex up to try to get the Medallion awards from Delta so my balance is $4,000.

I am disappointed about the possible delays in refunds this year due to the last minute changes to the AMT tax. I am really looking forward to paying down the credit card debt. I have written about tis before but I still considering changing my withholding so that I don’t give the free loan to Uncle Sam. I am going to run some numbers to see what my tax situation for 2008 looks like. It is nice to get those nice refunds but from a monthly budgeting perspective I could use the money in my paychecks. Having less withhold would let me save more each month in my emergency fund. My goal is to increase it to $15,000 by the end of 2008.