Evidently there is such a thing as a free lunch. My federal income tax refund was direct-deposited in my bank account today, and I ended up getting 202% of the taxes withheld back, for an effective tax rate of -3.32%. I did even better with my state taxes, where I got 2.72 times the amount withheld back. I guess the government felt sorry for me that my adjusted gross income from working at the hospital over semester breaks didn't even reach the standard deduction. Now if they would only feel sorry enough to cancel all the Stafford loan debt, that would be great too.