What is a tax refund advance? A tax refund advance is a short term loan that allows you to borrow money from your tax refund before you actually receive the money. Usually this type of loan has a high interest rate. The interest rate for this type of loan can be very high, maybe even up to almost 40%, which is ridiculous in my opinion. But there are still many other tax refund loans that are only 0% APR. 

In my opinion if the tax refund advance option has an interest rate involved, then I would only ever use it if I need money right away, for an important reason; other than that if the interest rate is very high, like almost 40% high, then what is the point to lose a good amount of money in order to use part of it right away.