explain tax refund?

[lil_Blue_Ford]

The IRS also insists that you pay them ongoing, during the whole year, at least 90% of your taxes due. If you don't, and instead pay up only at the end of the year, then they issue an extra penalty. Ouch!

So you should guesstimate your personal sweet spot, and have that much deducted from your weekly paycheck, up front. Your employer has a form you can use to adjust this, up or down.

If your income is around the poverty line, then you don't have to file taxes. Form 1040 explains that. And if you are above their threshold, then you must file, whether or not you owe them some tax. They don't forgive this sin. Tax evasion is stupid. Square up yearly, and stay outta jail.

Oh, and I like that suggestion of saving some $ aside, just in case. Pace your spending habits, if you can.

Actually, legally you don't have to pay the IRS a penny. It was brought to life as a voluntary thing and still remains so today.

The problem is, just try exercising that right to voluntarily not pay them and see how fast they ruin your life. Uncle Sam has been an out-of-control junkie for a long time now and it just keeps getting worse. It's way past time to evict all of those Washington fat cats that live their life sucking off our work.

Just remember one thing though... The IRS is going to be enforcing Obamacare. Hey, I mean, they can't get the tax thing right but I'm sure they'll be able to handle our health care just fine, right?

I could go on....

 

[naford]

The way I understood federal taxes is this. Lets say you make 100 dollars this week. They figure your taxes based on 100 dollars for 52 weeks. If you make 200 dollars one week they figure your taxes based on 200 dollars for 52 weeks. That is why your tax percentage goes up and down.

If you have a job that takes out taxes you need to file your taxes. The government hates having to carry money on the books that is to go back as a refund. They would really like to have 0 dollars going out as refunds and 0 dollars coming in as underpayments.

I'm not sure but I thought if you were self employed you had to file pay taxes every quarter. At least that is the way the city taxes were paid. Years ago the company would take out all the taxes but not pay it to the taxing agencies until they had to. So in the case of the federal government the company would be making money on the interest of the they held for taxes. This might have changed.

A sales tax sounds great but is extremely regressive. It favors the rich and hurts the poor. It is like increasing the service taxes an increasing the number of services that taxed. In Ohio they did this. Haircuts was one. What it does is increase the underground economy.

Flat tax always sounds nice but will not happen because the big companies and ultra rich need a complex tax system that allows them to pay less. I think the amount of tax would be in the neighborhood of 13 to 15 percent. If you remember Romney paid less than 15 percent of his income in taxes because he collected very little in actual salary but most was in the form capital gains that is taxed at 15 percent and yes he gave a lot to charity.

 

[pjtoledo]

So I'm 21 and I know nothing about how taxes work. Other than that I work hard and they take roughly 23% of each check. When I calculate my check early in the week I subtract 30%. 7% for my retirement and 23 for taxes. Gets me within 50$ every check without overtime.

I almost always work 25 hours of overtime a week. So 65 hours a week / 130 per check. My friends say "you'll get raped now, but tax time will be awesome" about a month ago I worked alot of overtime. 13 of 14 days in the pay period at 12 hours a day. My taxes were more than my normal paycheck.

Used turbotax refund calculator and to date it says ill get like 3300$ online it says the average refund is within 3 grand +/- 500$. Thought only people with dependants got alot. Like my single mother raising 2 kids... she got like 5500$ Every year.

Myself I though I might get like 800$ thinks its alot more? Were like half way to tax season. . I think?

overtime with-holding rates are much higher than standard 40hr /week rates, almost double if I recall correctly.

an example:
you earn $100 straight time, withholding of 15% is $15.00
plus, you earn $100 in overtime, withholding of 30% is $30.00
so the Govt now has $45 of YOUR money


at tax time your total tax liability is 15% on the $200 you earned, thats $30.00
you now get a refund of $15.00 ( $45 withheld minus the $30 tax liabality at filing. )

congratulations, you just "loaned" the government $15, interest free for a whole year.

does that make you feel any better?

 

[doorgunner]

yep...if I worked 40 hours regular time/40 hours overtime in one week.....

Uncle Sam took my 40 hours overtime pay for taxes & let me have the 40 hours straight time pay pay.....

40 X $20 = 800 = Mine

40 X $30 = 1,200 = Uncle Sam's cut

That's fair.......uhhhhhh...isn't it?

Ohhhh.....and a while back....Congress gave themselves a yearly RAISE of $36,000......which happened to more than I brought home after taxes in a year!



(I promised God that I wouldn't cuss)

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

The way I understood federal taxes is this. Lets say you make 100 dollars this week. They figure your taxes based on 100 dollars for 52 weeks. If you make 200 dollars one week they figure your taxes based on 200 dollars for 52 weeks. That is why your tax percentage goes up and down.

If you have a job that takes out taxes you need to file your taxes. The government hates having to carry money on the books that is to go back as a refund. They would really like to have 0 dollars going out as refunds and 0 dollars coming in as underpayments.

I'm not sure but I thought if you were self employed you had to file pay taxes every quarter. At least that is the way the city taxes were paid. Years ago the company would take out all the taxes but not pay it to the taxing agencies until they had to. So in the case of the federal government the company would be making money on the interest of the they held for taxes. This might have changed.

A sales tax sounds great but is extremely regressive. It favors the rich and hurts the poor. It is like increasing the service taxes an increasing the number of services that taxed. In Ohio they did this. Haircuts was one. What it does is increase the underground economy.

Flat tax always sounds nice but will not happen because the big companies and ultra rich need a complex tax system that allows them to pay less. I think the amount of tax would be in the neighborhood of 13 to 15 percent. If you remember Romney paid less than 15 percent of his income in taxes because he collected very little in actual salary but most was in the form capital gains that is taxed at 15 percent and yes he gave a lot to charity.

Self-employed or any business really should send in taxes every quarter. The only way around it is in the situation I found myself in a couple times where I either had another job for part of the year (and would claim 0 dependents to get the full tax taken) or did a bunch of work as an independent contractor in which case whoever I was doing the work for would have to collect the tax and send it in for me. Couple that with a low work turnover since the economy sucks and I was able to skip my quarterlies and pick up a couple hundred refund at the end of the year.

As far as the idea of a national sales tax, for it to work it has to be done properly. Such as place it on ALL new goods being sold. It really wouldn't raise current sales tax numbers more than a couple percent and if you wanted to avoid it, you would just buy used goods. Think about it like this. What if you put a tax of $0.01 on every roll of toilet paper. Would anyone really notice paying one cent more per roll of TP? But how many hundreds of dollars would that add up to when every household buys another 30 pack for the house? You don't have to make a sales tax of 33% on things to make money. And how the heck does it favor the rich to put a national sales tax on new goods? They buy new and take the hit, then you buy used and don't pay a tax because someone else already paid it. (Our current system allows for double, triple, quadruple and so on taxing - think of a vehicle, tax was paid when it was bought, then someone else bought it and paid tax again, then it was bought again and the tax was paid again, then it was bought by a junkyard and tax was paid again, then you buy parts from the junker and pay tax again....)

I also don't buy that argument about flat tax not being fair. Flat tax levels the field. If everyone is on the same level, calculating the tax owed will be a lot easier to figure out. Companies will like it because it simplifies the tax code and huge corporations will quickly find that they like it because they don't need an army of accountants to keep track of their taxes. One grey-haired accountant with a slide rule can handle a large corporations taxes with a flat tax. The only problem with it is the fat cats in Washington don't like that sort of simplicity. Plus when the Government decides to hand out more money to "special interest" groups or to welfare baby-mommas, Joe Six-Pack who's working part time at McD's and only paid $10 last year in taxes will stand up and say "hey, wait a minute, they're using the money I paid for WHAT!?!?! Now just wait a minute, that's MY money they're throwing away. I don't like THAT!"

Nothing like having some skin in the game....

Oh, and so not to start a war about the Romney bashing, but what about the money Obama paid in taxes last year and what he contributed to charity? What about Biden? Nancy Pelosi? Harry Ried? Al Sharpton? I get sick of people throwing out the "well, look at what Bush or Romney or whoever in the Repiglican....err... Republican party paid in taxes." What about the Taxocrats... err.. Demoncrats....err... Democrats..... (As you may have noticed I really don't care much for either party).

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

yep...if I worked 40 hours regular time/40 hours overtime in one week.....

Uncle Sam took my 40 hours overtime pay for taxes & let me have the 40 hours straight time pay pay.....

40 X $20 = 800 = Mine

40 X $30 = 1,200 = Uncle Sam's cut

That's fair.......uhhhhhh...isn't it?

Ohhhh.....and a while back....Congress gave themselves a yearly RAISE of $36,000......which happened to more than I brought home after taxes in a year!



(I promised God that I wouldn't cuss)

Sounds fair to me....

Actually, it is enough to make one spitting mad....

 

[swynx]

Ya that's how it was. I make 14.62 an hour. Check before taxes was like 2800$ after I got just under 1300.

I officially got boned hard. But I guess I get it back so its not all bad. I mean that's a set of tires.

 

[Mazda]

Personally, I'd much rather replace the income tax with a national sales tax. Not everyone pays income tax, but every crackhead and hooker out there has to buy something now and then.

However, if we must have an income tax, I'm an advocate of the flat or fair tax system where every one pays the same percentage no matter what their income is. You shouldn't be taxed at a higher rate just because you have a higher income. Why punish success? The wealthy guy will still pay a larger amount, but the proportion will be the same.

Dude A makes $K a year, Dude B makes $K a year. Tax rate flat at say 10% just for a nice round number. Dude A pays $3000 in tax, Dude B pays $10,000 in tax. How would that not be fair?

Now under our current system, people who make under a certain amount pay no income tax, while higher income earners end up footing the whole bill for everyone else, with the "reasoning" being that they can afford it cuz they're "rich". Sounds like there might be some incentive for some to not succeed so they don't have to pay taxes.

The rule of thumb is tax what you want less of, subsidize what you want more of. Now look at what is taxed and what is subsidized in this country and see what our Government's priorities are.

Unfortunately this type of tax system does not work. You cannot expect people that make different amounts of money per year to pay the same percentage in taxes. It does not work. Do the simple math. I see your from Tn so I will use some average numbers that I got from the internet.

Assume a family of 4 father makes 30,000 a year

Basic two bedroom apt rent 889 month = 10,788 year
basic utilities 400 4,800
food 400 4,800
car and ins payment 350 4,200
--------------------
2,490 24,588

So family of 4 is hit with 3,000 tax leaves 27000 a year and after 24,588 basic leaving expenses has only 2,412 extra money a year.


Then a family of 4 making 100,000 a year would pay 10,000 in taxes leaving almost 65,000 of his salary left.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

How is family one supposed to pay for all the extras that come up over the years. They need a new tranny for the car. A new fridge. Kid needs braces. (just did that one 3,500 bucks).

That's why we have the tax system we have now we take a bit more from the guy making 100,000 a year and give it to the families making 30,000 a year in the form of child credit and so on.

 

[kimcrwbr1]

The way I understood federal taxes is this. Lets say you make 100 dollars this week. They figure your taxes based on 100 dollars for 52 weeks. If you make 200 dollars one week they figure your taxes based on 200 dollars for 52 weeks. That is why your tax percentage goes up and down.

If you have a job that takes out taxes you need to file your taxes. The government hates having to carry money on the books that is to go back as a refund. They would really like to have 0 dollars going out as refunds and 0 dollars coming in as underpayments.

I'm not sure but I thought if you were self employed you had to file pay taxes every quarter. At least that is the way the city taxes were paid. Years ago the company would take out all the taxes but not pay it to the taxing agencies until they had to. So in the case of the federal government the company would be making money on the interest of the they held for taxes. This might have changed.

A sales tax sounds great but is extremely regressive. It favors the rich and hurts the poor. It is like increasing the service taxes an increasing the number of services that taxed. In Ohio they did this. Haircuts was one. What it does is increase the underground economy.

Flat tax always sounds nice but will not happen because the big companies and ultra rich need a complex tax system that allows them to pay less. I think the amount of tax would be in the neighborhood of 13 to 15 percent. If you remember Romney paid less than 15 percent of his income in taxes because he collected very little in actual salary but most was in the form capital gains that is taxed at 15 percent and yes he gave a lot to charity.

A 3% flat tax on all banking transactions would more than double the tax revenue our government is presently getting. Millions of tax consultants would lose their jobs including the IRS would be abolished. In five years the dept would be paid. Everyone would be able to save for their future and have more money to spend. Now can you see why the government will never pass the flat tax system they would lose control of the people. Progressives democrat or republican would not survive with a flat tax. How do you explain taxes there is no explanation.

 

[bmerr98]

How is family one supposed to pay for all the extras that come up over the years. They need a new tranny for the car. A new fridge. Kid needs braces. (just did that one 3,500 bucks).

That's why we have the tax system we have now we take a bit more from the guy making 100,000 a year and give it to the families making 30,000 a year in the form of child credit and so on.

So basically we have a tax system where one man's "need" gives him a claim on another man's income? And you think that's a good thing? What happens when someone who makes less than you do needs some of yours? Folks don't usually think about that. They just keep pointing the tax man to the "rich guy" over there.

And who defines what "rich" is? $100k/year in TN sounds pretty good, but in CA it's hovering around the poverty line. So "rich" isn't necessarily an income level, it boils down to whoever has more than I do is "rich", and they owe me some of their money because they made better decisions than I did.

It's like the current fast food worker strike going on. "We work at McDonald's and can't afford to feed our families!" No disrespect to fast food workers (we do what we gotta do), but NO KIDDING YOU CAN'T SUPPORT A FAMILY DROPPING FRIES IN A DEEP FRYER!!! That's typically a job for teens or people supplementing their income. If you're 33 with three kids and still work the drive thru, it's not someone else's fault. The company does not owe you a "living wage".

We are where we are mainly due to the decisions we have made in life. Guess what? Those decisions had consequences! And therein lies a big part of the problem with the world...nobody has to feel pain associated with bad decisions cuz the Gubament steps in an bails everyone out. don't want to be hungry? Have a welfare check! Pregnant and not married/can't afford a baby? Hire a "doctor" to kill the baby! Popping kids out like rabbits but already live on government checks? Have a bigger government check!

Liberalism. It's a mental disorder.

 

[HAPPY+RANGER+GUY]

Agree with that

Many fine points from the man in Tennessee!

 

[Mazda]

So basically we have a tax system where one man's "need" gives him a claim on another man's income? And you think that's a good thing? What happens when someone who makes less than you do needs some of yours? Folks don't usually think about that. They just keep pointing the tax man to the "rich guy" over there.


I didn't say it was a good thing, but its the system we have now. I know there are a lot of people that make a lot less than I do and yes I am taxed to help them out. It doesn't bother me. I do agree with you about people just having more kids and getting more because they don't want to do anything but that is another system that needs to be fixed.

 

[naford]

Your never going to solve the issue of taxes. But like I wrote. Companies and the ultra wealthy do not want a flat tax because they need the wiggle room to reduce their tax rate. The reason why I used Romney as a example is because he said he hadn't paid taxes of over 15%. He is the ultra rich. Why is it that the republicans want to reduce or eliminate the tax on capital gains? That is how Romney makes most of his money.

 

[bmerr98]

Let's all.remember that when the evil rich guy is paying 15% capital gains tax, he's already paid at least 30% income tax on the money he invested to get a return, on which he paid the 15% for which he is demonized by the media and other assorted liberals.

 

[tmcalavy]

We are slaves to bankers, drug lords, advertising and packaged food...all of which will kill you before you reach retirement, if you're not careful. America asleep will not right itself and correct these ills.