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If you’re banking on a tax refund, be aware it may be smaller than last year’s payment, according to the IRS.
Typically, you can expect a federal refund if you’ve overpaid yearly taxes or have withheld more than what you owe.
Your 2022 refund may be smaller because there were less generous tax breaks after pandemic relief expired, experts say.

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If you’re banking on a tax refund, it may be “somewhat lower” than last year’s payment, according to the IRS.
Typically, you can expect a federal refund if you’ve overpaid yearly taxes or withheld more than what you owe. One of the big reasons for smaller payments this year is expiring pandemic relief, which was delivered via tax breaks for 2021 returns, experts say.

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Meanwhile, many Americans are still struggling financially, with nearly one-third relying on their tax refund to make ends meet, a recent Credit Karma survey found.
Joe Buhrmann, a certified financial planner and senior financial planning consultant at eMoney Advisor, said smaller refunds and high inflation may be a “double whammy” for some families.
The average refund for the 2022 filing season was $3,176 as of Oct. 28, up nearly 14% from $2,791 in 2021, according to the IRS.

Why your 2022 tax refund may be smaller

There are several reasons why some filers may have a “nasty surprise” when filing their tax returns this year, Buhrmann said.
Thanks to the American Rescue Plan of 2021, many families got a boost from the enhanced child tax credit, worth up to $3,600 per child, and child and dependent care tax credit of up to $4,000 per dependent.

But those tax breaks have returned to previous levels. For 2022, the child tax credit dropped back to a maximum $2,000 per child, and the child and dependent care tax credit reverted to $1,050 per dependent. “That’s money out of refunds right there,” Buhrmann said.
If you didn’t receive the third stimulus payment, there was a chance to claim it on your 2021 return, further padding refunds, he said. 

Another pandemic-era change was a more generous charitable deduction in 2021, allowing filers to score a tax break, even if they didn’t itemize deductions.
The deduction — $300 for single filers or $600 for married couples filing jointly — was a “meaningful amount” for a lot of Americans, said Tony Molina, a certified public accountant at Wealthfront.

How to boost your refund or reduce your bill

While there aren’t many ways to increase your refund or trim your bill before the April 18 tax deadline, you may still have a few options, Molina said.
“One easy thing is you can still contribute to a traditional [individual retirement account]” and have it count for last year, he said, which may offer a tax deduction. Your eligibility for the tax break depends on your income and workplace retirement plan participation. 
There’s also still time for health savings account contributions for 2022, which also offers a deduction, assuming you have an eligible high-deductible health insurance plan. More

Chipotle Mexican Grill is seeking to hire 15,000 restaurant workers ahead of its busiest time of the year.
Restaurant workers are still in high demand, although the labor crunch has eased.
Chipotle’s Chief Restaurant Officer Scott Boatwright said in a statement that the company will keep hiring to support its “aggressive growth plans.”

A “Now Hiring” sign is displayed in front of a Chipotle restaurant on October 07, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images

Chipotle Mexican Grill is seeking to hire 15,000 restaurant workers ahead of its busiest time of the year, which runs from March to May.
In recent months, restaurants have found it easier to attract and retain workers, a reversal after the labor crunch that ensued after pandemic lockdowns. However, the sector has always had high turnover, and restaurants are still concerned about having enough employees to meet demand, even as some consumers pull back on going out to eat amid persistent inflation.

And while layoffs have hit white-collar workers, primarily in the tech industry, low-wage retail and restaurant workers haven’t faced any large-scale cuts. The unemployment rate for eating and drinking places was 5.2% in December, down from the pre-pandemic rate of 5.7%, according to Labor Department data.
Chipotle’s Chief Restaurant Officer Scott Boatwright said in a statement that the company will keep hiring to support its “aggressive growth plans.” Nearly a year ago, the chain revised its long-term outlook for unit growth. It’s now aiming to double its store footprint to 7,000 locations eventually, up from a prior target of 6,000.
Chipotle said that it’s working on improving and speeding up its hiring process. To attract and retain workers, the company offers benefits like free meals, tuition reimbursement, debt-free college degrees, access to mental health care and an all-crew bonus worth an extra month’s pay each year.
Chipotle has more than 100,000 employees currently. 
The burrito chain is expected to report its fourth-quarter earnings after the bell on Feb. 7.

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Comcast fourth-quarter revenue slightly increased to approximately $30.55 billion, propped up by higher broadband and wireless segment revenues. 
Broadband subscriber growth continued to wane. The company would have added 4,000 net subscribers had it not been for the impact of Hurricane Ian.
Peacock surpassed 20 million subscribers, but the streamer’s wider losses weighed on NBCUniversal’s earnings. 

Scott Mlyn | CNBC

Comcast on Thursday reported fourth-quarter earnings that topped analyst expectations despite persistent softness in broadband subscriber growth and mounting losses from its streaming service, Peacock. 
The company’s top-line growth was fueled by higher revenue from its broadband and wireless businesses, as well as its theme parks segment. 

Here’s how Comcast performed, compared with estimates from analysts surveyed by Refinitiv:

Earnings per share: 82 cents, adjusted, vs. 77 cents expected
Revenue: $30.55 billion vs. $30.32 billion expected.

The Philadelphia company reported Thursday its fourth-quarter adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization declined nearly 5% to $8 billion compared with the same period last year, particularly because of higher severance expenses.
Comcast said it lost 26,000 total broadband customers during the period, particularly due to the impact of service interruptions from Hurricane Ian, which struck Florida and South Carolina in September. Excluding the impact of the hurricane, Comcast said it would have added 4,000 customers.
Yet even that number was a sign that cable broadband subscriber growth has slowed – especially compared with the early days of the Covid pandemic. The slowdown in subscriber growth has been hitting the cornerstone business of cable companies like Comcast and Charter Communications in recent quarters as they face heightened competition from telecom and wireless providers.
The companies have also said recently that the U.S. housing market slowdown – and a declining rate of moving between homes – has contributed to the lack of new customers. Still, Comcast’s broadband subscriber base has remained stable and revenue for the segment increased nearly 6% during the quarter due in part to price hikes. 

Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile continued to grow with 365,000 net additions in the quarter, bringing its total wireless customer count to more than 5.3 million. Mobile customer growth has remained consistent for cable providers since jumping into the business in recent years. 
The cable TV business lost 440,000 subscribers during the quarter as consumers continue to cut their traditional TV bundles in favor of streaming services. 

Peacock pressure

NBCUniversal saw revenue increase about 6% to roughly $9.9 billion during the fourth quarter, buoyed by revenue from the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which was aired on its Spanish-language Telemundo TV network and Peacock. 
However, Peacock weighed on NBCUniversal’s business – which is made up of film, tv, streaming and theme parks – as its adjusted earnings fell more than 36% to $817 million, due to Peacock losses and higher severance expenses. NBCUniversal recorded an adjusted loss of $978 million related to Peacock compared with a loss of $559 million in the same period last year. 
The company said Thursday that Peacock added 5 million net paying subscribers during the fourth quarter, its best quarterly record since its 2020 launch. Peacock surpassed 20 million paying customers and its revenue nearly tripled to $2.1 billion. 
The theme parks business remained a bright spot for NBCUniversal, with revenue for the segment increasing 12% to $2.1 billion during the fourth quarter, fueled by higher attendance and customer spending at locations in the U.S. and Japan. 
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC.

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American Airlines reported profits that topped estimates after a rocky holiday travel season.
The airline’s revenue was up nearly 17% from 2019 before the pandemic halted travel.
American expects that capacity will be 8% to 10% higher in its first quarter of 2023 compared to a year earlier.

Employees of American Airlines help check in passengers at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on January 11, 2023 in Arlington, Virginia.
Alex Wong | Getty Images

American Airlines’ fourth-quarter profit beat analysts’ expectations as strong travel demand and high fares buoyed results during a turbulent holiday season.
Shares of American were up about 2% in premarket trading on Thursday.

Here’s how American Airlines performed in the fourth quarter compared with what Wall Street anticipated, based on an average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Refinitiv:

Adjusted earnings per share: $1.17 versus an expected $1.14
Total revenue: $13.19 billion versus expected $13.20 billion

For the three months ended Dec. 31, the company reported net income of $803 million, or $1.14 per share, unadjusted — a stark improvement from a loss of $931 million, or $1.44 per share, during the same period a year earlier.
Quarterly revenue of $13.19 billion was up 16.6% from the same period in 2019, before the pandemic stymied travel. American earlier this month raised its revenue and profit estimates for its fourth quarter.
American raked in that record fourth-quarter revenue despite operating 6.1% less capacity, suggesting flyers keep paying up for seats.
For the full year, American reported $127 million in net income. It was the first full-year profit for the carrier since 2019, CEO Robert Isom said in a message to employees Thursday morning.

The company paid an average of $3.50 per gallon of fuel in the fourth quarter, up 48% from last year. It expects that cost to come down to somewhere between $3.33 and $3.38 per gallon as it heads into its first quarter of 2023.
Based on those cost estimates and where demand is going, American said it expects capacity to be 8% to 10% higher than the first quarter of 2022 and projects that it will break even on earnings per share.
Airline executives at Delta and United were similarly upbeat about 2023 bookings despite concerns about layoffs at major U.S. companies and economic weakness.
American is scheduled to hold a call with analysts and media at 8:30 a.m., when they are likely to face questions about costs in 2023, the state of corporate travel demand and the potential for new labor contracts with pilots and flight attendants this year.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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Southwest canceled about 17,000 flights over the year-end holidays.
The airline took a $800 million-hit to pretax results from the flight disruptions.
Southwest expects to post a loss for the first three months of the year.

Travelers check in at a Southwest Airlines ticket counter during the busy Christmas holiday season at Orlando International Airport on December 28, 2022 in Orlando, Florida.
Paul Hennessy | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Southwest Airlines said Thursday it expects its holiday meltdown to continue to weigh on its bottom line, but said it still expects to be profitable this year.
The carrier reported a net loss of $220 million in the fourth quarter after the travel chaos drove up expenses and cost it millions in revenue during what was expected to be the busiest travel period since before the pandemic.

“Thus far in January 2023, the Company has experienced an increase in flight cancellations and a deceleration in bookings, primarily for January and February 2023 travel, which are assumed to be associated with the operational disruptions in December 2022,” Southwest said in a quarterly report.
Analysts had been anticipating a per-share profit of 19 cents for the first quarter, based on estimates compiled by Refinitiv.
The Dallas-based airline said booking trends look positive in March, however, and it forecast first-quarter revenue up 20% to 24% over last year with capacity up 10%. It also estimated fuel and other costs would be higher than it previously estimated.
Southwest’s fourth-quarter loss compares with a $68 million profit during the same period in 2021. Its record revenue of $6.17 billion was up more than 22% from a year earlier.
Here’s how Southwest performed in the fourth quarter, compared with Wall Street expectations according to Refinitiv consensus estimates:

Adjusted loss per share: 38 cents vs an expected loss of 12 cents.
Total revenue: $6.17 billion vs an expected $6.16 billion.

Southwest shares were down about 2% in premarket trading after reporting results.
The airline said the mass cancellations hit its pretax results by $800 million, in line with its estimate earlier this month of a hit between $725 million and $825 million.
Southwest canceled around 16,700 flights between Dec. 21 though Dec. 31 after severe winter weather swept through the U.S.
While rival airlines had largely recovered around Christmas after the winter weather, Southwest’s technology was unable to process all the flight changes and crews had to call the carrier to get rescheduled. The carrier decided to scrap most of its flights in the following days to reset its operation, CEO Bob Jordan said earlier this month.
The carrier has been processing tens of thousands of refunds and complex reimbursements for travelers who booked flights on other airlines to get to their destinations.
The Transportation Department is investigating whether Southwest’s schedules over the holidays were “unrealistic,” a spokesperson said late Wednesday.
Despite the rocky end of the year, Southwest reported a $539 million profit for 2022. That’s still down 45% from a year earlier, however.
For the full-year 2023, it plans to expand flying as much as 17%, post another profit and expand margins, echoing the upbeat outlook shared by rivals like American, Delta and United.
Southwest’s executives will hold a call with analysts and media at 12:30 ET. They are likely to face questions about any additional costs and political fallout from its missteps as well as an update on technology updates that aim to prevent another meltdown.

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Toyota CEO and President Akio Toyoda, 66, will step down from his post on April 1, the automaker said today.
He will be replaced as chief executive by current Chief Branding Officer Koji Sato.

Akio Toyoda, president and CEO of Toyota Motor Corp.
Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Toyota Motor Corporation’s President and Chief Executive Akio Toyoda will step down from his post on April 1, to be replaced by current Chief Branding Officer Koji Sato, the Japanese automaker said Thursday.
Sato, 53, has been heading the Toyota Lexis division and the GAZOO racing company since 2020.

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Toyoda will become the new chairman of the board, while the current Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada will continue as a member of the board.
Toyoda, 66, is the grandson of the carmaker’s founder and has served as chief executive since June 2009.
“I thought the best way to further Toyota’s transformation would be for me to become chairman in support of a new president, and this has led to today’s decision. Chairman Uchiyamada has long supported me in all imaginable ways,” Toyoda said in a translated webcast.
“In retrospect, these 13 years have been a period of struggling to survive one day after the next, and that is my honest feeling,” he added.
“The current Toyota structural change has been triggered by my resignation,” Uchiyamada said, stressing that he had been considering the timing of his retirement for “some time” to make way for a new generation.

“The foundation for passing the baton to the next generation has been laid,” he said.
“Cars in the future will evolve in the concept of mobility itself. Amid such, I hope to preserve the essential value of the car and propose new forms of mobility,” Sato said, adding that this represented the mission of the new leadership team.
Tokyo-listed shares of Toyota ended the session 0.63% lower Thursday ahead of the announcement.
A pioneer of green automobiles in 1997 with the introduction of its hybrid Prius, the company has increasingly fended off criticism over the pace at which it has pursued fully-electric vehicles, playing catch-up to newcomers such as Tesla.
In Dec. 2021, it announced plans to produce 30 EV models by 2030. A year later, in Dec. 2022, it said a consortium it leads secured funding to develop a hydrogen fuel cell pickup truck in the U.K.
Sato on Thursday acknowledged Toyota must continue its green efforts: “Energy security, for example, that is a big challenge that the whole planet needs to face. And also that the endeavor towards carbon neutrality will be one example of what we have to work on.”
— CNBC’s Jihye Lee contributed to this story
— Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Toyoda was referring to the company Toyota when discussing its transformation in the webcast.

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Chinese consumers prioritize their health, especially insurance, much more after the pandemic, an Oliver Wyman survey found.
December’s Covid wave revealed the gap between China’s public health system and the country’s global economic heft as second only to the U.S.
Extreme pressure on public hospitals — including lack of capacity — drove many new patients for Covid and non-Covid care to facilities operated by United Family Healthcare in China, said founder Roberta Lipson.

Chuiyangliu hospital, pictured in January 2023 in Beijing, in the last few years finished renovations that allowed for a six-fold increase in daily patents to 5,000 a day, according to official estimates.
Yin Hon Chow | CNBC

BEIJING — At the top of the shopping list for anyone in their late 20s or older in China is health, sports and wellness. That’s according to an Oliver Wyman survey late last year, as China finally started to end its Covid controls.
For people planning to spend more on that health category, 47% said in December they intend to spend more on health insurance. That’s up from 32% in October, the report said.

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“There’s a much higher health concern after this latest wave, but after the entire pandemic the health consciousness of the Chinese consumer has increased a lot,” said Kenneth Chow, principal at Oliver Wyman.
Even for people in their early twenties, health is only second to their plans to spend more on dining, the survey found. The study ranked the categories by the percentage of respondents who said they intended to spend more on each item, minus the percentage of respondents planning to spend less.
The pandemic pressured hospitals around the world. But China’s situation — especially since Covid cases surged in December — revealed the gap between the local public health system and the country’s global economic heft as second only to the U.S.
The U.S. ranks first in the world by health expenditure per person, at $10,921 in 2019, according to the World Bank. For China, the same figure was $535, similar to that of Mexico.
Households in China also pay for a higher share of their health care — 35.2% versus 11.3% for Americans, World Bank data showed.

Extreme pressure on public hospitals — including lack of capacity — drove many new patients for Covid and non-Covid care to facilities operated by United Family Healthcare in China, said founder Roberta Lipson. She said her company has 11 international-standard hospitals and more than 20 clinics in major Chinese cities.
“Growth in awareness of the importance of assured access to health care, as well as UFH as an alternative provider, is driving increased demand for our services from patients that can afford self-pay care,” she said.
“This experience is also driving increased interest in commercial health insurance which could cover access to premium private providers,” Lipson said. “We are helping patients to understand the benefits of commercial insurance. This will have a lasting impact on demand volume for private healthcare services.”
New Frontier Health, of which Lipson is vice chair, acquired United Family Healthcare from TPG in 2019.
In early December, mainland China abruptly ended its stringent Covid contact tracing measures. Infections surged, with hospitalizations reaching a high of 1.6 million nationwide on Jan. 5, official data showed.
Between Dec. 8 and Jan. 12, Chinese hospitals saw nearly 60,000 Covid-related deaths — mostly of senior citizens, according to Chinese health authorities. By Jan. 23, the total exceeded 74,000, according to CNBC estimates from official data.
Although new deaths per day have fallen sharply from the peak, the figures don’t include Covid patients who may have died at home. Anecdotes depict a public health system overwhelmed with people at the height of the wave, and long wait times for ambulances. Doctors and nurses worked overtime at hospitals, sometimes while they themselves were sick.

Health insurance

Most of the 1.4 billion people in China have what’s called social health insurance, which provides access to public hospitals and reimbursement for medicine included in a state-approved list. Employers and their staff both contribute regular payments to the government-run system.
The penetration of other health insurance — including commercial plans — was only 0.8% as of the third quarter of 2022, according to S&P Global Ratings.

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Analyst WenWen Chen expects commercial health insurance to grow quickly this year and next. “Following Covid, we do see people’s risk awareness rising. For [health insurance] agents, it’s easier for them to establish conversations with clients.”
Some of the players in China’s health insurance industry include Ping An, PICC and AIA. Local authorities are also testing a low-cost insurance product called Huimin Bao.
Oliver Wyman’s survey in December found that 62% of non-policyholders planned to buy health insurance, and that 44% of existing policyholders were considering an increase in their coverage.
Over the last 15 years, the Chinese government has dedicated financial and political resources to developing the country’s public health system. The topic was an entire section in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s report at a major political meeting in October.

Hospital funding

However, one of the barriers to improving China’s public health system is its fragmented financing system, according to Qingyue Meng, executive director at Peking University’s China Center for Health Development Studies.
Health-care providers in China receive financing from four sources — social health insurance, the government health budget, essential public health programs and out-of-pocket payments — each “managed by different authorities without effective coordination in budget management and allocation,” Meng wrote in The Lancet in December.
“Hospitals and clinics are reluctant to provide public health care due to the absence of financial incentives and the important number of regulations,” he said, “which further separate[s] hospitals and [specialized public health organizations such as the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control].”

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For comparison, HCA Healthcare, the largest hospital operator in the U.S., said over half of its revenue comes from managed care — often company-subsidized plans that have a network of health providers — and other insurers. Most of HCA’s other revenue comes from government-related Medicare and Medicaid health insurance plans.
In China, United Family Healthcare’s Lipson claimed that being a privately managed business allowed it to react more quickly. “We finance our own growth and can acquire talent and expertise by offering competitive pay packages, so we can also flex beds to the level of care that is needed.”
“Having observed the course that pandemic surges took in other countries, and because our patients are private pay, we were able to order sufficient supplies of medication, PPE etc, as we began to see the numbers of Covid cases grow in China,” she said.
Her company had excess capacity at the start of the pandemic since it opened four hospitals in the past two years, Lipson said, noting the public system added 80,000 intensive care unit beds over the last three years, but struggled to meet the demand from the surge in Covid cases.

A shortage of specialized doctors

Ultimately, the pandemic’s shock offers the opportunity for broader industry changes.
The health care payment system doesn’t have a direct impact on China’s hospitals, because most are directly under government oversight, said George Jiang, consulting director at Frost&Sullivan.
But he said macro events can drive needed systemic changes, such as tripling ICU capacity in a month.
China’s tiered medical system had forced doctors to compete for a few advanced intensive care departments in only the biggest cities, leading to a lack of qualified ICU physicians and hence beds, Jiang said. He said recent changes mean smaller cities now have the capacity to hire such specialized doctors — a situation China hasn’t seen in the past 15 years.
Now with more ICU beds, he expects China will need to train more doctors to that level of care.
There are many more factors behind China’s health care development, and why locals often go abroad for medical treatment.
But Jiang noted the greater use of the internet for payments and other services in China versus the U.S. means the Asian country can become the most advanced market for medical digitalization.
Chinese companies already in the space include JD Health and WeDoctor.
— CNBC’s Dan Mangan contributed to this report.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Roberta Lipson is founder of United Family Healthcare and vice chair of parent company New Frontier Health.

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The DOT probe is looking at whether Southwest’s schedules were “unrealistic.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has previously said he will hold Southwest accountable for the holiday meltdown.
Southwest is scheduled to report quarterly results on Thursday.

A Southwest Airlines passenger jet lands at Chicago Midway International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, on December 28, 2022.
Kamil Krzaczynski | AFP | Getty Images

The Transportation Department said Wednesday that it is in the initial phase of an investigation of Southwest Airlines’ holiday meltdown and looking at whether the carrier’s schedules was unrealistic.
Southwest has said it canceled more than 16,000 flights between Dec. 21 and Dec. 31 as it struggled to recover from severe winter weather while executives said they had to cancel even more flights to steady the operation.

The company and labor unions have pointed to outmoded scheduling platforms that weren’t designed to handle the number of flight changes that occurred over that period.
“DOT is also probing whether Southwest executives engaged in unrealistic scheduling of flights which under federal law is considered an unfair and deceptive practice,” a DOT spokesperson said. “DOT will leverage the full extent of its investigative and enforcement power to ensure consumers are protected and this process will continue to evolve as the Department learns more.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has previously vowed to hold Southwest accountable for the disruptions, which left hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded.
“Our holiday flight schedule was thoughtfully designed and offered to our Customers with the backing of a solid plan to operate it, and with ample staffing,” Southwest said in a statement late Wednesday. “We will continue to cooperate with any inquiry or request from government oversight or elected officials. We’re acutely focused on learning from this event, mitigating the risk of a repeat occurrence, and delivering the hospitality and outstanding service our Customers expect from us.”
Southwest is scheduled to report results before the market opens on Thursday.

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