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It's not hard to think that refund anticipation loans are a short-lived phenomena. Certainly, a majority of taxpayers who want them this year may not get them, especially if H&R Block can't put together a program with its bank. H&R Block is in negotiations with HSBC after Block sued that company claiming the financial institution hadn't taken steps necessary  to ensure it would fund a RAL program.

Republic Bank just agreed to fund RALs for 80 percent of Jackson Hewitt locations, up from the previous 50 percent, but that's likely to come at the expense of independent electronic return originators. Republic had already said it expects to provide only one-third of the amount it offered last year for RALs. That is a direct result of the decision by the Internal Revenue Service not to provide the direct deposit indicator.

The next best thing is assisted transfers and there is some room for optimism there. MetaBank was forced from that market by the Office of Thrift Supervision, but at least one new name, Citizen's Bank, has entered that refund transfer market.

For many taxpayers, the next best thing will be direct deposit, including those made to debit cards and that is the biggest development in transferring refunds to taxpayers. The debit cards are something that can be used by those without bank accounts and that group represents a big part of the taxpaying public that wants refund loans.

There's no comment here about the wisdom of any of this, just that this is the way the market is going and many taxpayers are going to look for refund loans and not find them during tax season.

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