&........ Taxes....................

[Road Guy]

Anyone know a good website / spreadsheet / app that you have used in the past to accurately estimate end of the year taxes?

Backstory - Ive ben writing checks to uncle sam the last couple of years, so this year I am claiming zero. (I have 3 kids, wife works) I claimed 3 last year and paid a few thousand but I also had cashed in a lot of vacation and wife had a lot of OT.

I think this year our money will be steady, I am trying to find something I can input money, mortgage interest, etc, and basically do my taxes so maybe I can at least claim 1? I hate having so much ******* money taken out of my check

 

[knight1fox3]

We have been in the same boat the last couple of years. Have you tried this? http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/IRS-Withholding-Calculator

We used that and verified the resulting data with a financial adviser to see if the extra withholdings was going to be sufficient. I guess we'll know how accurate it was at the end of the year.

 

[Road Guy]

Extra! Witholdings!!!

 

[Road Guy]

That's a good link.

**** I hope it's estimating high.. It says we should both claim 0, pay an extra 65 a paycheck and stick our heads between our legs and kiss our *** goodbye....

 

[Flyer_PE]

The amount taken out of my check has pissed me off to one degree or another since 1990 .

 

[Supe]

Yeah. At my current rate, I will have paid more in taxes this year than my gross earnings for my first year in this same job. By $10k.

 

[SNAPE/SMOTT PE]

It sux to make a good living on paper, and bring home so much less! I always thought a six figure income would be awesome....just means I pay more in taxes and get marginally more per pay check.

 

[Ship Wreck PE]

You need to get more tax deductions.

 

[engineergurl]

See... y'all just need to get a job like mine.... they give me money back cause they feel bad

 

[Ship Wreck PE]

Have some more kids.

 

[mudpuppy]

We have been in the same boat the last couple of years. Have you tried this? http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/IRS-Withholding-Calculator

Wow that's pretty cool; wherever did you find it?

Witholding for dual incomes is always F-ed up because they assume your spouse doesn't work. In my opinion the safest thing to do is fill out your W-4 as single, 0 allowances, even if you're married.

 

[Road Guy]

Six months of no mortgage interest isn't going to help this year either

 

[Ivory]

If you have the extra cash, try to maximize your 401K. This will delay your tax burden on that money now, it may also put you in a lower tax bracket. This will delay paying taxes on this money until you retire and try to use that money.

 

[Exception Collection]

Also maximize your HSA if you can have one. I do that every year.

 

[Road Guy]

We for the most part max out our pretax deductions 401(k) and our FSA accounts we try to do everything we can cannot pay Uncle Sam one more dime then we have to

We only do 10% in our 401(k)s but that's about as good as we can do right now

 

[ventilator]

I need to check that out, we had to pay for the first time this year. That was a fun surprise. Mrs vent will be staying home this year with the new baby so she will only have ~30% of the income this year compared to last so I'm hoping that we won't be paying again. We both already claim 0 on our W4s and it would make me sick to have to apply for additional with holdings from paychecks.

 

[csb]

I used mudpuppy's IRS link and it worked for me. Got back $700 last year, which is nice after W-4 single status, 0 claims and $100 extra paid in each month. (sarcasm heavily used in that last sentence)

 

[knight1fox3]

We have been in the same boat the last couple of years. Have you tried this? http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/IRS-Withholding-Calculator

Wow that's pretty cool; wherever did you find it?

I should have given props to MP for originally pointing me to that link.

As I mentioned, we gave it a try for this year in hopes of not having to pay in like we have in the past. I believe I am withholding an extra $140 from my check and $120 from LadyFox's check (both claiming 0).

 

[snickerd3]

things like that bug me...if people are withholding the max and it isn't enough...then their calcs to determine what should be withheld are wrong and need to be fixed.

 

[engineergurl]

things like that bug me...if people are withholding the max and it isn't enough...then their calcs to determine what should be withheld are wrong and need to be fixed.

I'm pretty sure in most cases here, there are additional outside influences... investments, mortgage interest, child deductions etc... the calcs may be right for the most plain scenario... or maybe even it factors in some things...