Huge swaths of Americans should expect bigger tax refunds this year, and you can use H&R Bock's free calculator to estimate yours

Tax Day 2019 is Monday, April 15.
You can file your taxes as early as January 28, as long as you have your W-2 form from your employer, which must be filed and postmarked on or before January 31.
If you have your W-2 handy, it'll take less than five minutes to estimate your tax refund using H&R Block's free online tax calculator .

H&R Block is one of the most popular services for filing your taxes online.

The traditional paper-and-pencil option will get the job done, but if you e-file you'll get your tax refund within three weeks , rather than the standard six weeks. Plus, you can request your refund via direct deposit.

President Donald Trump signed the Republican tax bill into law at the end of 2017, and this is the first tax season to observe the new tax brackets , which could change the size of your refund.

A team of UBS analysts takes a look at how tax refunds are set to change under the new law and estimated an increase in overall tax refunds between $42 billion and $66 billion compared to the 2017 tax year. The report found that most married filers with two children would see a pretty sizeable boost in their refunds for 2018 compared to 2017, especially those making under $40,000 a year and those making between $125,000 and $400,000.

You can file your taxes as early as January 28, as long as you have your W-2 form from your employer, which must be filed and postmarked on or before January 31.

If you have your W-2 handy, it'll take less than five minutes to estimate your tax refund using H&R Block's free online tax calculator . You begin by answering a few questions about yourself: your marital status, age, number of dependents, and whether you have health insurance.

The next section, titled "income," is where your W-2 comes in.

These are the only three numbers youll need from your W-2:

2018 total wages (box 1 on your W-2)
Federal income taxes withheld (box 2 on your W-2)
State income tax (box 17 on your W-2) you can ignore this one if your state doesn't tax income

hr block refund calculator H&R Block

After entering those figures, you'll answer a few more quick questions about whether you own a home, have children, or expect to claim any other deductions or tax credits.

And then your tax refund estimate will appear:

hr block tax refund calculator H&R Block

Once you're ready to actually file your taxes, the IRS recommends e-filing and requesting direct deposit for your refund.

Popular online tax services like TurboTax and H&R Block are easy to use, even for tax novices.If your income was less than $66,000 in 2018, many online tax services offer the option to file for your federal taxes and sometimes state taxes for free. You can check your options using the IRS Free File Lookup tool .