People who are supposed to receive big tax refunds might do well to consider investing the money in Google, judging by a new note from Citi.  An analyst representing the firm believes the company’s future is bright in more than a few ways.

That’s been in question in recent weeks and months.  A financial chart showing the performance of the Dow, the Nasdaq, and Google over the last year isn’t too favorable, for example.

At the same time, a chart covering the past six months makes Google’s stock look all right.

So on to what the Citi expert said.  Pascal Emmanuel-Gobry, who got his hands on Mark Mahaney’s report, wrote, “The gist: the stock is cheap, Facebook isn’t that big a deal, and YouTube and local are going to be huge.”

Mahaney himself even predicted that YouTube will earn over $1.1 billion in revenue in 2012, explaining, “Q1 data shows YouTube’s share of total videos streamed remaining at a very high 41%.  Further, our proprietary YouTube Ad Tracking Analysis shows 81% of YouTube’s Top 100 Videos now being ad-monetized vs. 77% in Q4 and approximately 60% a year ago.”

So a return to the good old days may be in order for Google.  After all, for a while, Google’s stock just went up and up, and almost every quarter it delivered an earnings report that would shock and amaze (in a good way).

Google’s stock rose 2.75 percent today, by the way, which should please current shareholders and perhaps draw in a few more people.