April 17 -- Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's!

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Turns out, of course, that we're getting a sizable refund. The late year return to work had the opposite effect from what I expected.

That's generally what happens in that case. Your payroll was likely withholding based on a full year's salary. Since you only had a partial year's worth of income you were likely in a lower tax bracket than you would have been had you worked the full year, so taxes were being withheld at too high of a rate. At least that's what happened the year that I only worked for 6 months.