United States
In the United States, taxpayers can apply for a refund anticipation loan through a paid professional tax preparation service, where a fee is typically charged for the preparation of the tax return. In the United States the Internal Revenue Service rules prohibit basing this fee on the amount of the expected refund. An additional fee is usually charged by the service for originating a bank product and establishing a short-term bank account. By law this fee must be the same on both loan and non-loan bank products, and in 2004 the average fee was $32. The bank through which the loan is made charges finance charges.
According to the National Consumer Law Center, 12 million taxpayers used an RAL in 2004. With e-filing and IRS partnerships that help consumers e-file for free, U.S. taxpayers can receive their tax refunds within three weeks and as quickly as ten to fourteen days if they choose to receive their refund via direct-deposit. This has rendered RALs less attractive to some.
Read more about this topic: Refund Anticipation Loan
Famous quotes related to united states:
“The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn’t need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder—in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“The real charm of the United States is that it is the only comic country ever heard of.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“... while one-half of the people of the United States are robbed of their inherent right of personal representation in this freest country on the face of the globe, it is idle for us to expect that the men who thus rob women will not rob each other as individuals, corporations and Government.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“The rising power of the United States in world affairs ... requires, not a more compliant press, but a relentless barrage of facts and criticism.... Our job in this age, as I see it, is not to serve as cheerleaders for our side in the present world struggle but to help the largest possible number of people to see the realities of the changing and convulsive world in which American policy must operate.”
—James Reston (b. 1909)
“God knows that any man who would seek the presidency of the United States is a fool for his pains. The burden is all but intolerable, and the things that I have to do are just as much as the human spirit can carry.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)