Anyone here do taxes for a living?

[Jspafford]

I have a question.

Last year in Sept I got married. Prior to that I always got a refund, nothing huge, but between $500 and $1500.

So last year I also bought a house with the new wife.

She has student loan interest, we now have mortgage interest.

So when I got my W-2's I was shocked, my employer only took out $680 on 21K.

My other employer took out $350 on 8K.

Last year I paid in almost 3K in Federal taxes alone. So now I am flipping out because I have no idea why both my jobs stopped taking out the right amount of money. Nothings changed except I now claim Married and not Single.

I can't afford to make a huge payment to the IRS... Why in the world are they not taking out what they should.

The wife gave me her W-2's and lo and behold, her employers did the same thing. Not enough taken out. One of her's was $80 on 4K worth of income.. Are you serious?

If we are married with no kids, how many exemptions should we be claiming? 0,1,2? I would like more taken from each check so I end up with a refund and not owing!!!

HELP!!!!!

 

[Jim Oaks]

The same thing happened to my wife. I can't find her W2 at the moment, but she made somewhere around $22,000 and her federal witholding is only a few buck more than her state.

It's all part of the Governments plan to give you more money in your paycheck to stimulate the economy. You were stimulating the economy....right?

 

[adsm08]

WOW!!! Gotta ask though, didn't you notice at some point that they were only taking out a few cents a check or not taking anything at all?

I don't do taxes for a living, but I know a thing or two about how to get a bit more back. I'm also at least semi familiar with some of the more major laws and I know a lot of good tax people I can ask.

On your W-4 I'd claim 0 or 1. On your actual tax form, you should be able to claim yourself and your wife as dependents. Remember that you can also claim credit against the interest on those loans, any tools or uniforms that you may have bought for work and not been reimbursed for by your employer.

I always like to have them taking a few extra dollars out every week though. Makes for a bigger return at tax time.

 

[Jspafford]

The same thing happened to my wife. I can't find her W2 at the moment, but she made somewhere around $22,000 and her federal witholding is only a few buck more than her state.

It's all part of the Governments plan to give you more money in your paycheck to stimulate the economy. You were stimulating the economy....right?

I was looking through my paychecks from last year. First off, I made $6400 less this year at my fulltime job which I am pissed about, but they went from taking $20-$25 a check to $6-$10 a check the beginning of March, 2009. Anyone know if a tax law changed?

I made just over 21K there this year, Social Security took $1341, Federal was only $673

What the hell!

WOW!!! Gotta ask though, didn't you notice at some point that they were only taking out a few cents a check or not taking anything at all?

I don't do taxes for a living, but I know a thing or two about how to get a bit more back. I'm also at least semi familiar with some of the more major laws and I know a lot of good tax people I can ask.

On your W-4 I'd claim 0 or 1. On your actual tax form, you should be able to claim yourself and your wife as dependents. Remember that you can also claim credit against the interest on those loans, any tools or uniforms that you may have bought for work and not been reimbursed for by your employer.

I always like to have them taking a few extra dollars out every week though. Makes for a bigger return at tax time.

I have mine set to Married with 0 exemptions. That should give me the maximum refund, right? If not, how do I trace down why I ended up owing.

Even with 6K in house interest paid, and 5K in the wife's student loan interest, we still owe the Feds almost a grand.

I am so steamed right now.

 

[adsm08]

Yeah, the lower the number you have on your W-4 the more you get taken out, so the more you get back when you actually claim more people on your filing.

 

[Jspafford]

Yeah, the lower the number you have on your W-4 the more you get taken out, so the more you get back when you actually claim more people on your filing.

So should I ask my employer to raise my rate back to the prior "making work pay" amount?

 

[Jim Oaks]

I'm retired, so I get the same amount in my check every month.

My 2009 checks went up $38.29 a month. My federal tax went down $38.17 a month. It's something employers were required to do by the Feds.

 

[adsm08]

Ok, to make this math easier on my already aching head I'm gonna use my own numbers.

Say you were getting $10 taken out per pay check before, and now you are only getting $5 taken out.

Go back in, file a new W-4, and where it says "extra withholding" fill in that you want them to hold an extra $5 per pay.

The only place where you will hit a snag with this method is that the tax rate is a %. The extra withholding is an absolute number.

 

[Will]

IRS WITHHOLDING CALCULATOR

And read this.

It's the Making Work Pay Credit, and multiple income people are the ones the IRS cautioned would probably owe.

It's like running through the dorm from the shower with too small a towel isn't it? Obamanomics.

 

[Jspafford]

IRS WITHHOLDING CALCULATOR

And read this.

It's the Making Work Pay Credit, and multiple income people are the ones the IRS cautioned would probably owe.

It's like running through the dorm from the shower with too small a towel isn't it? Obamanomics.

I thought that was it, but what I don't understand is how come someone making the same money as me at my job is getting more taken out of each check that I am? The employer doesn't know how much I make each week at my second job?

You would think the poor saps like me busting my balls to make ends meet with two jobs would be the ones benefiting the most, not the one losing his proverbial ass.

 

[JohnnyO]

It's the Making Work Pay Credit, and multiple income people are the ones the IRS cautioned would probably owe.

It's like running through the dorm from the shower with too small a towel isn't it? Obamanomics.

They cut the withholding rate but not the actual tax rate that you end up paying at the end of the year.
Generally speaking, most people pay more in SS and Medicare taxes than they pay in Federal Income Tax.

 

[adsm08]

And they said Bush had bad tax ideas. At least we didn't end up paying in on the same income and tax rates we were getting returns on before after his first year in office.

 

[JohnnyO]

And they said Bush had bad tax ideas.

He only cut taxes, which is a bad tax idea only to Democrats.

 

[mjonesjr]

If you are worried about having to pay, change your W4 to show "Married, but with hold at a higher single rate".

I changed mine after I got married in March. I didn't see a difference in my checks.

You can only claim $2,500 of the $5,000 student loan interest. It sucks. I have been going through it since '06. I have roughly $6,000 in student loan interest, but can only claim $2,500. Now that I am married and my wife has student loans as well, we have nearly $9,000 a year we pay in student loan interest. Guess what, we can still only claim $2,500 even though we are married.

 

[Will]

You are missing the point. The withholding rate is the thing that changed.

In a world where people invest and everyone knows everything, it's better to get all of your money, invest it, pay your tax difference at the end of the year. In the real world where nobody knows anything, you just spend the extra money you didn't realize you were getting and then try to find the money you suddenly owe at the end of the year.

Remember when Bush Senior didn't know what a gallon of milk cost? There is nobody involved in these bright ideas that actually has to worry about their monthly or even annual income. They deal in concepts. They are so disconnected from you that they will never get it right when they try to do anything. That cutting taxes increases revenue is a no brainer. It's a safe bet. It's so beautifully logical that even the Democrats can see it, even though it just fundamentally rubs them wrong. But has Obama ever made $30,000/yr and filed his taxes himself and been happy to be getting a $600 return? No. He figured, spread that $600 throughout the year and give everyone $50 extra a month to spend and that will really get things rolling. Except anytime you have an average and there are 70-million wage earners involved, 15 million of those earners will be fawked by the stupid idea. If he made $30k he would be fawked too.

Seriously, you are seeing the danger of being ruled by Democrats. They mean well, but they don't know anything. The Republicans don't know anything either, but they don't mean well. It's better. Trust me. It's well-meaning people that will kill you. In the largest economy in the world, the smallest and seemingly most insignificant turn of the dial can have huge repricussions. It's much better to not mean well and not do anything. And when you don't know what to do, cut taxes. That always works.