Major media outlets were reporting that personal income tax refunds were going to be quite a bit smaller this year because of Orange Man. Orange Man BAD!!!
Washington Examiner has a completely different story:
Newsrooms that rushed to report tax refunds were smaller this year go silent on IRS data showing refunds have increased
Tax refunds are up from where they were this time last year by 1.3 percent following the fourth week of the 2019 filing season, according to new Internal Revenue Service data.
To be more specific, the average tax refund has increased to $3,143 from $3,103 last February, according to cumulative statistics comparing the 2018 and 2019 filing seasons.
Oddly enough, certain newsrooms have responded to this development with total silence. I say “odd,” because it was just a few weeks ago that these same newsrooms rushed to report that tax refunds were smaller this year, suggesting either implicitly or explicitly that the decrease was tied to the Republican Party’s tax reform bill.
And some examples of these "news" stories:
“Millions of Americans could be stunned as their tax refunds shrink,” read a headline published on Feb. 10 by the Washington Post. The story reported, "Many Americans may confuse their meager refunds as a sign that they paid more in taxes as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Generally, that is not true." On Feb. 14, the Post ran a story titled, “IRS says average tax refund is down nearly 9 percent so far this year.”
The author also cites The New York Times, National Public Radio, Associated Press USA Today, Yahoo, CBS News, and CNN complete with links to their stories.
Talk about a real "pants-on-fire" moment for those media outlets. Narrative versus truth.
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