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Tax check (2 Viewers)

We owe $1050 this year after owing $51 last year.  We made 2% more than we did last year and had same # exemptions on our W4.  Not sure what has changed, but it sucks.  I knew I should've rechecked our exemptions after seeing the small bump in take-home pay.  :kicksrock:  

 
Walking Boot said:
Measuring the refund is meaningless.

Instead, measure your total tax. Especially because the tax reform bill adjusted what you got in your paycheck weekly instead of the lump sum refund you get at the end. If you have $15000 in tax withheld, then you get a refund for $4000, is that better than having $12000 tax withheld and getting "only" a $3000 refund? Do the math. Looking at a refund is for suckers.
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i agree that the refund is not really the way to look at it, but how would this work?  how does it not even out in the end?  you owe what you owe for the year, regardless of when it was taken out, right?

 
Salt cap hit me in the nuts. Also has the effect of me not wanting to give to charity. So winning?

 
DallasDMac said:
I have to ask, how are so many of you already done with taxes? My IRAs still haven't posted the tax forms and they are consistently not released until the middle of February. I mean, folks that run businesses and whatnot, and even your average FBG, have to have at least some mutual funds and whatnot right? How do you all manage to file so early? I just checked and all my forms still aren't available.
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The brokerge statements won't factor for the Trump tax changes.  

 
It would probably blow people's mind in here that I plow like 20k into the irs on credit cards every year to get cash back.  Easy money. 

 
DallasDMac said:
I have to ask, how are so many of you already done with taxes? My IRAs still haven't posted the tax forms and they are consistently not released until the middle of February. I mean, folks that run businesses and whatnot, and even your average FBG, have to have at least some mutual funds and whatnot right? How do you all manage to file so early? I just checked and all my forms still aren't available.
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Kids in college and private school. Gotta have stuff filed way early for financial aid. 

 
culdeus said:
The brokerge statements won't factor for the Trump tax changes.  
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I looked. I actually had the 1099-DIV. I am however still waiting on two 1099-INT. Jumped on live chat with my bank to ask WTF the forms were? They don't even offer the chance to download them online.

 
DallasDMac said:
I looked. I actually had the 1099-DIV. I am however still waiting on two 1099-INT. Jumped on live chat with my bank to ask WTF the forms were? They don't even offer the chance to download them online.
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Not due till 2/15.  But not sure what that has to do with my comment. 

 
I feel for you guys with the massive property taxes.

It just makes me realize how lucky we are as our property taxes were less than $1,000 

 
DallasDMac said:
I have to ask, how are so many of you already done with taxes? My IRAs still haven't posted the tax forms and they are consistently not released until the middle of February. I mean, folks that run businesses and whatnot, and even your average FBG, have to have at least some mutual funds and whatnot right? How do you all manage to file so early? I just checked and all my forms still aren't available.
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I have two places that I get 1099s from.  Yes, they usually don't show up until the middle of February.  This year both were ready for download the other day.  I don't know why they were a bit early.  I'm not filing yet, waiting in case a correction is sent out.  I owe both Fed and State a little money, so no rush.

 
matuski said:
So many people seem to be using their refund or what they owe as the measuring stick....  :confused:
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If mine isn't within $200-$300 of zero, then I use it as a measuring stick that I failed in my financial planning. This year may be an exception though. I really wasn't sure how to account for all the tax changes.

 
i have no clue. my employment and income situation has fluctuated greatly over the past 3 years since I moved from Chicago to Portland.

2016 - Chicago job / Portland job 1
2017 - Portland job 1 / unemployment
2018 - unemployment / Portland job 2

 
xulf said:
I've always wanted a refund because its forced savings.  With crappy interest rates, who cares...
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Exactly.  Those years I get money back - meh, not worried about the $10 of interest I'm losing out on.    (I claim zero deductions and will probably still write a check to the feds this year.   Just hope not to hit penalty territory).

mr roboto said:
Its the K1s that take the longest. 
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No joke.  I tend to find that I fill these damn things out and they make almost no difference at all in my return.

 
xulf said:
I've always wanted a refund because its forced savings.  With crappy interest rates, who cares...
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Makes sense to a degree. 

Either way I'm putting the money into investments, whether it's part of the end of month dump into Robinhood, or once a year dump into my Roth (wife's gets maxed early) doesn't really matter. 

 
This is why I'm glad I married a CPA! I don't have to deal with this stuff. She does Audits in her work, but still knows enough and certainly has the free resources in her firm if she needs it.

 
xulf said:
I've always wanted a refund because its forced savings.  With crappy interest rates, who cares...
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With me it was getting burned 2 years in a row while I was in college.  Had to pay in taxes when I didn't make much and didn't have a lot of cash in savings.  It's easier to adjust weekly to $10-20 less cash in my pocket than it is to have a $500 tax bill in April that you don't have.

 
saintfool said:
Previous years I itemized. This year I opted for the new standard deduction. Took home the same amount and saved myself a few hours. 
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Same with me.  

We’ve donated A LOT of non-cash items past couple years.  Worst part of taxes was assigning a fair value to it all.  This year taxes were fairly easy.  

 
took home more, less taxes taken out from my check + health care costs went down with a plan change 

refund fell off a cliff

 
I dont know how mine is going to go.

Last 2 years my itemizations were ~ 26

So I assume I will take the standard.

What I won't know is how much it changes because in 2017 I owed but that was because my Withholdings were incorrect from previous years.

I changed my withholding for 2018 so I don't have a true gauge.

 
shuke said:
With the advantage that you have it if you need it.  
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With the disadvantage that most people will spend it if they have it.

However,  I wonder what people are blowing the larger refund on.

Maybe a new thread for that one coming soon.

 
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So just preliminary filled mine out.

So somehow we made way more than last year which is not accurate.  Unless it's because of the extra pay period?   I was expecting about 5% and it was closer to 10.

I think I hit the standard deduction and no exemptions?  I just have 1 dependent left that is claimable so that hurt a little plus no college interest.

I need to revisit it but I owed way more taxes than last year. Still getting about 1k back but I changed a lot of withholdings this past year plus no daycare...

 
ghostguy123 said:
With the disadvantage that most people will spend it if they have it.

However,  I wonder what people are blowing the larger refund on.

Maybe a new thread for that one coming soon.
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Paying for my daughter's college trip to Belize which is $3,500

Buying new glasses for both daughters.

Putting the rest towards Vegas this summer to celebrate our 50th birthdays (wife and me) 

 
Just finished mine. The tax change sure slipped me the crippler (thanks Trump). My payment TO the government climbed about $1700 over last year. Was not expecting that. I've done well keeping refunds/payments near the zero mark. But this year, well, he got me.

 
Had to pay in 3500 last year. Changed deductions but was a lot of unknown this year with all of the tax changes.  Not completely finished, but it looks like we will have to pay in approx 750 this year so definitely ahead.

 
I retract my earlier statement. Though I had to pay in this year, it is because I missed the change in withholding from my paycheck. My tax owed this year was actually $1326 less than last year. So the bill I owed was on me.

 
DallasDMac said:
I retract my earlier statement. Though I had to pay in this year, it is because I missed the change in withholding from my paycheck. My tax owed this year was actually $1326 less than last year. So the bill I owed was on me.
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Treasury should have adjusted the withholding tables to try and keep return expectations the same.  Most folks aren't going to dig into their taxes and figure out their tax paid actually went down.  Most will just look at their return and, if smaller, figure they got screwed.  We see the ignorance on display in the media everywhere.  Once I finally get mine done it will be interesting to see my tax rate changes from last year.

Also, on another subject, I was looking at what I've put in so far in my taxes and I got hit with the SALT limit.  It highlighted, mostly, how much I pay in state and local income taxes.  If it can hit me in a relatively low tax state maybe the limit is a bit low - adds up much quicker than I realized.  Maybe hike the max rate back up to 37% and up SALT a bit to not hit the middle class, which it probably is in higher tax state.

 
Sand said:
Treasury should have adjusted the withholding tables to try and keep return expectations the same. 
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Well, I think this is where they failed rather miserably based on the number of unhappy people. Folks trusted the Treasury to get it right and apparently they flubbed it pretty badly. So now you have a bunch of unhappy folks. I can't say that is unreasonable. Whereas most of us here are in a position where we can say "Well, they flubbed it and now I have to pay, but I realize my taxes were lower," many aren't and got hit with unexpected tax bills. I get why there is an outcry.

 
Sand said:
Treasury should have adjusted the withholding tables to try and keep return expectations the same.  Most folks aren't going to dig into their taxes and figure out their tax paid actually went down.  Most will just look at their return and, if smaller, figure they got screwed.  We see the ignorance on display in the media everywhere.  Once I finally get mine done it will be interesting to see my tax rate changes from last year.

Also, on another subject, I was looking at what I've put in so far in my taxes and I got hit with the SALT limit.  It highlighted, mostly, how much I pay in state and local income taxes.  If it can hit me in a relatively low tax state maybe the limit is a bit low - adds up much quicker than I realized.  Maybe hike the max rate back up to 37% and up SALT a bit to not hit the middle class, which it probably is in higher tax state.
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The tables still aren't adjusted fwiw.   

 
DallasDMac said:
Well, I think this is where they failed rather miserably based on the number of unhappy people. Folks trusted the Treasury to get it right and apparently they flubbed it pretty badly. So now you have a bunch of unhappy folks. I can't say that is unreasonable. Whereas most of us here are in a position where we can say "Well, they flubbed it and now I have to pay, but I realize my taxes were lower," many aren't and got hit with unexpected tax bills. I get why there is an outcry.
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Of course, the #### in me notes that these same folks are very likely to have had larger paychecks all through the year...

 
My weekly paycheck went down not up, my yearly deductions went down, I owed more than last year tax wise. :shrug:

 
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Sand said:
Of course, the #### in me notes that these same folks are very likely to have had larger paychecks all through the year...
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The typical person who doesn’t follow their finances closely doesn’t know or chooses to ignore this. 

I’d think this would be a pretty big test of the MAGA hat wearing guy who got Trump elected in rural Ohio, Penn, Wisc, etc.

 
Sand said:
Of course, the #### in me notes that these same folks are very likely to have had larger paychecks all through the year...
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Right, because that is exactly what their president touted. More take home pay for everyone because of the great tax cut. No one touted cutting withholding to the point that they'd owe a big tax bill at the end of the year. So it's a little disingenuous to throw this all on the taxpayer.

 
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