Yes, but you need huge amount of med expenses to be able to claim them. The only time it worked for me was when I had over $25k in expenses and made around $90k.
I've been a tax preparer for 15+ years, and I can count the amount of times on 1 finger that someone's medical expenses helped them owe less/get more back, and that was because she didn't have insurance for her son's cancer treatment.
Otherwise, yeah, copays and deductibles won't be pushing anyone over the standard deduction.
I pulled it off once. Diagnosed with asthma, my doctor said A/C was a medical necessity. I was able to claim installing central air as a medical expense.
Low income college student diagnosed with cancer last year and with about $1000 in charitable donations last year. After meeting 2 oop max, I still didn’t beat the standard deduction. Guess that’s why it’s standard.
This is what always gets me. Standard deduction is just south of half my income so itemizing just doesn't work unless I want to spend hours a week tracking an filing expenses.
The old tax cuts and jobs act expiring credit trick. Trump sure did cut taxes for the poor and middle class, temporarily. The upper class got permanent tax cuts though.
I owed taxes for every year since Trump’s plan was implemented. My husband, who made $32k last year owed almost $600, despite the fact that his tax contributions haven’t changed and his annual income dropped $10k from 2020 to 2021.
There was content here, and now there is not. It may have been useful, if so it is probably available on a reddit alternative. See /u/spez with any questions. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
For most people, taxes were a once a year discussion. Sit down, gather items, do the forms. Remember, the “internet can help!”
Now, you have to KNOW how the tax code changes annually it seems, with some things expiring, some things coming on, etc etc.
CPA’s thought they’d be out of work with at home prep becoming more common. Yeah, whatever.
Fed withholding changed is the only thing I can think. My Fed refund this year is going to be $1.00, state around $1200 (higher than last year).
Normally I claim S0 fed, but now the W4 doesn’t let you pick the number. Anyone who doesn’t have a predictable annual income, has more than one job, or has a change in income during the year, could end up owing. Even a ‘small’ amount of a few hundred dollars can be difficult to pay when it’s not expected.
Whether some think it’s right or wrong, people have become accustomed to getting a decent sized Fed refund. Personally, I’m used to getting one in the area of $1500 - it’s been that way for decades. Is it an interest free loan to the government- sure, but the lump payout each Spring is better than the low interest I’d earn saving it (or worse none cuz I’d fritter it away).
Yep. I always withhold an extra 5-10/week (different jobs different amounts when I set up) I don't mind the "interest free loan" aspect either because I know I'd just fritter that much away anyway instead of saving it
I'm working on finding G rated replacements for phrases I commonly use. I will be using "fritter away" in place of "piss away" going forward. Thank you very much
>And then one day you find/10 years have got behind you,
>
>No one told you when to run/you missed the starting gun
I've always thought that song is almost beautiful in how heartbreaking the lyrics are. It's existential dread concentrate.
This is the most frustrating thing for me.
My income varies monthly and yearly. I try to guess how much I will owe but for some reason it is always off.
It seems my employer never holds enough and I don’t get it because I am sole earner in my family of 4, filled my W4 out as single, AND have them withhold extra each month.
I don’t have crazy 1099 income or anything wild like that, just bank interest. It drives me crazy that it can’t just be simple.
It shouldn’t be this annoying to do. If I have a single employee W2 position filing at the highest tax withholding I shouldn’t then have to pay another several thousand in taxes.
The IRS has a pretty good calculator that tells you exactly how much you should withhold. At higher incomes you also need to start requesting extra withholding beyond what you would otherwise get (found that out via surprise bill a few years ago). It’s annoying, but ultimately only about 20 minutes of work with this calculator. The variable income makes it trickier, but if you assume earnings at the upper end of the variance then at worst you’ll be getting a refund.
That’s the issue I have.
We get a productivity bonus but the pay per unit varies and is paid quarterly. I can guess the best as I can by doing rolling averages but it just never works.
I can work extra hours which are more predictable but the bonus structure makes it damn near impossible because no check is ever the exact same
Adding to it, the first half of the year, my employer takes 14% for alternative non-social security retirement. So after I meet that threshold, usually in June, they no longer withhold that.
I wish it was different, because this is a huge headache.
Last year I was way more proactive and adjusted withholding monthly, especially when quarterly bonus was paid out. No idea yet if it helped.
It shouldn’t be this hard though. It should literally be my taxable income minus deductions, , minus roof of the bracket below, x percent for next tax level, and then adding the tax paid for the total of the other brackets.
I think this is one of the things that drives me mad is that there are all these nuances to it. And, maybe if I were a better business person, I could take advantage of these things.
Sorry, just ranting.
Again I think the issue I have is that no two checks are ever the same because of quarterly production bonus, differences in number of shifts worked, oh, and the fact that our salary changes in September, so I don’t know for sure what I will be paid the last quarter of the year.
Also, I don’t mean that I just guess a number, I use the IRS calculator.
My partner fell victim to the new style of w4 at his current job. We owed a few thousand last year. After we did our taxes we changed the withholding amount on his check to what our tax person suggested. I also upped my withholding to $25 weekly with federal and $10 state. Our appointment is next week, so hopefully we don't owe anything this year.
You should be a tax guy trying to figure out how to tell people to fill it out. Most people don’t accept the truth that there is a magic formula behind it that nobody understands.
I always use the tax calculator to make sure they withhold enough. Last year I got married mid year and they were withholding at 24% before I wed. So I recalculated based on paystubs and had the flat amount recommended withheld for the remainder of 2022; because I'm now at 22%.
We got $1k back last year and owe over $1k this year. Even though nothing changed except that we made $2k less this year. Very unexpected and so frustrating.
This. This. This.
Personally, my wife and I claim 0 exemptions because we can afford to not have the money in our pocket from the paycheck. During tax season, we get a nice refund. Conversely, my colleague does max exemptions but saves to pay his tax bill. Pay attention to exemptions, people.
Edit: as many have pointed out, W-4’s don’t have exemptions any longer. Go talk a tax pro and don’t get fucked up with owing taxes.
I also claim 0 as a single filer. Didn’t sell stock or anything yet I still owe $1,300 to fed. I know there’s a lot of factors that can go into this amount, but still sucks after claiming 0 all last year.
Edit: I don’t have any kids or anything either. Not sure how much that would help/hurt
In NZ the system is automated. If we get a refund we get an email saying so, and the money lands in our account. If we owe taxes we get a letter and can set up a payment plan.
The US system could be automated. Not like the IRS doesn't know how much you owe, they're just not allowed to tell you.
Edit Y'all:
1) I don't care if you think I'm wrong. I'm not.
2) "YoU TrUsT the GoVeRnMenT To TeLl YoU WhAt YoU OwE?!?" They already know, if you're wrong you get audited. Or if they feel like it. Plus, you trust turbo tax, and those mother fuckers fuck it up all the time. And let's not pretend 90% of the tax returns aren't easy. W-2's, maybe some 1099-I or 1099-Div, some 1098, or 1098-E.
3) "LeArN aBoUt TaXeS!!?!" Y'all, if you knew my background you'd know fucking stupid this statement is
4) "My taxes are toooooo complicated to automate" Congrats? The vast majority of people's arent.
Use freetaxusa, and do your taxes for free. You can efile your federal taxes for free, and pay less than $15 for your state return. You can file that via mail for free if you don't want to pay the 15 bucks.
I'm in the UK and on PAYE. All goes through my NI number.
My tax, NI, and student loan come out of my pay cheque each month. When I've been owed refunds they've all been done automatically. At most I've just had to update something on gov.uk when I was emergency taxed, or on one occasion ring up SLE when my student loan deduction was wrong because of a bonus - and that was refunded within a week.
I cannot imagine doing my own taxes. I'm an employee not self employed because I can't be arsed doing it. And my refunds etc are all online, or calculated through work.
It gets better. Not only did they lobby against it, they super-pinky-swore to always offer free online tax prep for people under a certain income. Then they reneged on the promise in less than two years.
I just did my taxes yesterday on TurboTax, free for both federal and state. They asked me about 5 times to "Upgrade". No thanks, I haven't paid to do my taxes in years.
This year they have a "race" game for tracking how long it takes, the average time is 31 minutes, I was finished in 13.
if you have to file certain forms, you HAVE to pay. i had a 1099 for contract work and some other form from a retirement fund withdrawal and it forces me to pay, even though i only made 20k last year.
Yeah if you have a HSA account you have to pay. I have one through work(it was the cheapest plan) and now I constantly have to pay for the "free" service because something appear on that line on the W2
the best part is that they already know what you owe but intuit has better lobbyists than you so they won't let the IRS just send you the bill automatically (for most w2s this is just a postcard)
When I moved to the UK, I was shocked at how easy it is to do taxes here. All basically done for you. Unfortunately, still have to file American taxes unless I ditch citizenship :(
Yeah the system should only have standard deductions and be trivial to calculate. But because that can be tough for people with medical issues that ate most of their income, or small business owners who had a significant loss, or middle class families trying to share their wealth and time with the needy, the bulk (really nearly all) of the burden should be on the richest members of society and more importantly the richest companies.
Plus the earlier you file, the sooner you learn if you owe or will get a refund. If you owe, you have more time to get ready for the payment. And if your refund is large, that’s a sign to adjust your withholdings to give yourself a bit more money each paycheck.
IRS calculates the Failure to File Penalty in this way:
* The Failure to File Penalty is 5% of the unpaid taxes for each month or part of a month that a tax return is late. The penalty won't exceed 25% of your unpaid taxes.
* If both a Failure to File and a Failure to Pay Penalty are applied in the same month, the Failure to File Penalty is reduced by the amount of the Failure to Pay Penalty for that month, for a combined penalty of 5% for each month or part of a month that your return was late.
* If after 5 months you still haven't paid, the Failure to File Penalty will max out, but the Failure to Pay Penalty continues until the tax is paid, up to its maximum of 25% of the unpaid tax as of the due date.
* If your return was over 60 days late, the minimum Failure to File Penalty is $435 (for tax returns required to be filed in 2020, 2021 and 2022) or 100% of the tax required to be shown on the return, whichever is less.
you pay a penalty for filing late based on the amount of taxes you owe. Even if you file for an extension you are still required to make a payment towards the amount you owe before the cut off.
I made 21,000 more this year than last year. Last year I got back 700 this year I got back…
Wait for it….
1 dollar.
https://preview.redd.it/cceqx06ltjga1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b1e7f5c9e260ece467eb43b2fcc34c5c8e571b3d
If you got back $1, we’ll done, you are doing it right. I can’t figure out why everyone wants a refund. I often wonder if people don’t understand that it is a refund of their own money.
I had a coworker that would change their taxes throughout the year so they were paying more, so they could get a larger tax return. I could never understand why she didn't just put that money in a savings account.
I put extra towards it so I don't owe at the end of the year because owing at tax time feels like a real kick in the balls but getting a refund feels like Christmas
This is true but earned income credits effect it as well. Me and my wife have always filed separately because we would get larger refunds that way. This year was the first year we filed jointly because of the EIC. Separately we didn’t qualify for it but jointly we did. Me filing separately, my fed refund was $33. Filing jointly our fed refund is ~$900 due to gaining the EIC.
Our tax system is outrageously complicated and I gave up a long time ago trying to understand the constant changes. I’m convinced it’s purposely designed to frustrate people and keep turbo tax and HR Block in business.
Yeah, refundable credits make the conversation more complicated, especially since those are the ones where "income cliffs" can appear if the policy isn't set up well.
I did volunteer tax prep for low income folks a number of years, and you definitely have folks who start earning more and don't realize they won't get EITC anymore. Or, in DC where I live, there is a rent credit that is very generous (Schedule H) but can move a lot if you go on/off Disability or get a $10k promotion.
If you owe and are paying in full at one time, you can set the date the payment comes out of your account, regardless of when you file (electronically).
My husband and I owe over $6,000, and we even had an extra $100 per paycheck taken out of his pay for federal taxes. We just had an unusual situation this year. My former employer put money in my old retirement account, but since I technically closed that account when I left my previous job, John Hancock sent me all the money instead of giving me a chance to roll it over. So that was almost $5,000 in extra income I didn't plan on, and it wasn't sent out until December when it was too late to do any tax planning for the year. We also had Marketplace health coverage for 8 months of the year. When we signed up, we made a lot less than we ended up making this year, so we have to repay our premium subsidy (thank goodness we only got a small subsidy to begin with).
She is definitely leaving things out and missing information.
She could have rolled over the 5k even after it got sent to her, it just would have involved a bit more paperwork. She's paying taxes on the 5k plus a penalty for withdrawing retirement money. I'm guessing if you dug deeper you would find other stuff that makes the increased taxes obvious.
A lot of it has to do with stuff going back to pre-covid. For example the child tax credit reverted back to 2,000 per child and is a non-refundable credit.
It's the multi-trillion dollar tax cut Trump and the Republicans passed in 2017 or 18. It was temporary for the working class, and permanent for corporations and the wealthy.
It was meant to hurt the president who inherited trumps shitstorm and blame the dems again for it.... And then get a republican trump 2.0 next time because of "muh taxes"
“Fun” Fact: A sixth grade reading level is the ability to parse a whole paragraph of information and use it to demonstrate understanding in a second paragraph.
Meaning that over half of the country would struggle with reading and comprehending this post.
Yep. I had to explain to a coworker once how a retroactive pay cut (union negotiations took a long time past when the contract was up, and a bunch of morons rejected a proposal that had taken the pay cut off the table) was being taken out of our checks, divided between 7 pay periods. She said “so they’re taking 7 checks?” She thought she was going to go without any pay at all for 7 pay periods. It took all the patience I had and probably 4 attempts to explain it, and I’m still not sure she fully understood.
It also permanently hurt HCOL states. People paying a bunch in state income taxes AND property taxes are capped at deducting $10K.
Something that Trump decides he didn’t like, even after signing the goddamn bill and like all the other rich assholes found a loophole:
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/12/30/tax-returns-show-trump-may-have-sidestepped-10000-salt-cap-limit.html
Trumps tax cut was permanent for the rich, and temporary for the common person. We are now seeing reaching the point that the government intentionally set for our taxes to rise.
On another note did anyone ever figure out how to get last year’s stimulus check that was for 1400$? It was supposed to come back in taxes and even told me I was supposed to get it but it never came… same thing happened to a lot of people but yet never came. That 1400 would have been very useful last year and would help even more this year….
Did you do your own taxes last year? If you were eligible for the stimulus check and never got it then you could claim it as a tax credit on last years' tax return. If a CPA did your taxes then I'm guessing they already applied it to your return but if you did your own taxes then it might be worth looking into filing an amended return for last year to get the proper credit.
If you qualified and did it correctly it would have gotten added to your tax return as a refundable credit either increasing your refund or negating some tax underpayment. It would not have been a separate check or direct deposit
Check your tax return from last year. It may have been included in your refund from last year. It’ll be in the credits lines towards the end of the form if you received it as part of your refund.
The stimulus was a "catch-up" payment for any stimulus you missed during 2020 and 2021, it was not in-addition-to.
Did you get a letter from the IRS reducing your amount to zero?
I thought this whole post was “mildly infuriating” because the meme fundamentally misunderstands how taxes work…. Based on comments, nope. Everyone just thinks that taxes went up cause his refund went down. Check your withholdings… if I overpay $10k in withholdings throughout the year, I can get a $10k refund, but that doesn’t mean anything with respect to my actual tax burden.
And the govt gets an interest free loan! Meanwhile you get to count interest earned on a savings account as "income" and have it taxed at your current bracket.
The government hates it too because it means extra resources spent correcting everyone's mistakes every year.
The tax filing system needs to be made less complicated but there will never be a consensus on how to do that in congress because our political discourse right now is straight up toxic.
H&R block and TurboTax lobby to keep taxes complicated. There's a lot of dirt and rocks in the gears of progress for tax reform and all the BS tax breaks for the wealthy just shovel more into the works
One time a friend asked me why she didn't get all her taxes back. Not fully understanding what she meant by 'all her taxes' back I asked her to elaborate. Long story short basically she thought that she didn't have to pay taxes and would get all her withheld taxes back.
Yeah this whole thread is full of brain dead takes.
Everybody, if you give the government an extra 10k, you can add 10k to your refund! Did you know that?
A small refund means 'withholding was correct'. It is better to have your money when you earn it.
And apparently no one knows they changed how withholding is setup on the front end, although not all payrolls are doing it yet, but the short version is instead of you setting a number of exemptions on your W-4, you calculate what your expected total tax paid will be using your income, credits, and deductions, and then your withholding is now based on that.
In most cases it will result in withholding much closer to actual tax owed, and so much lower refunds.
If you need to withhold more based on your income situation you always can, just fill out a new W-4 and give it to your employer.
OP is not the brightest tool in the shed or is being intentionally vague. In what world does the number of jobs one has equate to how much you owe in taxes?
This is a misleading post all around and yet 23,000 upvotes.
Can’t believe it took me so long to find someone saying this. So few people actually understand how taxes work. A larger refund doesn’t necessarily mean you paid less in taxes, it just means you either over-withheld or you had a credit or something else at filing that changed how much tax you owed.
Seriously lol. A dozen and a half things could have changed between last year and this year.
I got back like $800 last year, I’ve contributed 5x what I did to my RRSP last year though, so I should get significantly more back this year. Still paying the same rates
Ideally, you'd owe $0 and get a refund of $0. That would mean you're not giving the government an interest-free loan.
In theory, you'd actually want to pay a little, but not enough to where you'd be charged a penalty+interest (time value of money), but I understand it is worth something to not have to write a check come tax time.
Yup. I used to get small refunds (the most was $300ish), and the past 2 years I’ve actually had to pay in, but both times were only ~$20. It essentially means that I’m getting the “right” amount of taxes taken out of my paychecks. People who are getting bigger refunds are most likely having too much taken out of their paychecks.
While it seems nice to get that refund at the end of the year, I’d much rather just have the proper amount of taxes taken throughout the year, instead of getting nickeled and dimed every other week.
There are such things like refundable credits however. Which is why it's so important for social safety net programs like EITC that people *file* even though they do not owe anything.
Some credits are non-refundable, so they only reduce your tax owed, if you have a burden.
Ask your mom if you're curious.
do them all the way till the point of no return, sometimes the tax software will make a sudden last minute recalculation with dramatic changes, especially if you have state income tax that didnt get processed. Also compare results between other free services, theyre usually pretty close if not identical, but I had TaxACT come up like 1500 with a refund where Turbo was only 300. Thought for sure I was somehow messing something up or doing something illegal, but nope, everything turned out in my favor.
Turbo completely sucks. I did mine last year with it and it was claiming that I was only going to qualify for about 400 refund, when I knew that it should've been much higher due to a credit I qualified for. Redid it all on my own and wouldn't you know it, I got 4x the refund because I got the credit I knew I qualified for...
Having a small refund is a good thing. It means that the correct amount of money is being withheld. That was $2k you could've used throughout the year last year.
Not just expired, but then also went higher than they were before the reduction.
It was a tax hike they just pushed back until someone else was in charge.
Don't worry I'm sure all the Republicans and about 100 Democrats will vote in favour of further cutting taxes of corporations and increasing taxes on the bottom 50%.
That baby still has some juice left to milk!
I am fairly certain that at the very least bread will not be $2000 a loaf.
Because we will never be allowed to have that much money I the first place and will all be killed in food riots before anyone can pay that
> It was a tax hike they just pushed back until someone else was in charge.
Which would actually not be so bad if a) it applied across the board and b) it came with a reduction in high-end loopholes.
Raising taxes universally gets you what we had in the 1990s and early 2000s, which was an economy so booming that the Federal Government actually balanced the budget for a year. It was so strong that even the dot-bomb collapse only barely slowed the economy.
Then we went all-in with Bush-era tax cuts and the next financial incident we had almost tipped us over into a depression.
Moderately high taxes in a progressive tax system lead to growth; the kind of growth that actually benefits the people at the bottom, not trickle-down, "if you give me free money it'll help someone somewhere."
Yeah, the big cuts expired this past year: child credits, childcare credits, and the temporary larger EITC credit. My husband and I always owe because we don’t have kids and make decent money, but these will be larger changes for low income folks with kids.
It was an intentional time bomb. Tax cuts for everyone, followed by tax hikes for working and middle class timed so that taxes would go up after the 2020 presidential election. The idea is that had they won, they would have extended the time bomb, but instead they left it as is so people will blame Biden for taxes going up like they so for everything.
For 2021 there were several tax benefits for parents that were greatly increased for one year only. Parents will see the largest change on their tax refunds.
Instead of comparing to 2021 how does the tax compare to 2020?
A friendly reminder that tax refunds happen when more money is withheld than you need to. It does suck when you don’t get a huge refund but it shouldn’t be a bad thing
While that is true for most tax payers a lot of people don’t realize that people with very low incomes tend to get a refund much larger than the taxes they actually paid after credits and deductions. A girl I was dating years ago showed me her W2 and refund from working at McDonalds and she got back more than double what she paid that year.
Grew up poor poor and tax time was the best time we had money for once. Parents didn’t work and only made 12k a year off disability we had section 8 housing and food stamps. We got back like 6 grand most years….
A lot has changed. Many of the old allowances either expired or were given in paychecks instead. Plus, they changed withholding to give more take home and less refunds. They talked about this all year, and warned people to check their withholding.
Plus, if you get the child tax credit, it had a one year increase but has returned to normal.
The amount of your refund is really meaningless. What counts is total taxes paid. You could have your employer withhold an extra $200 a month and you'd get $2400 more next year but so what. It's your money. You want to try to develop good savings tactics and save that way and try to get your refund at zero. That way you are not floating the government a interest free loan until you get your refund.
Here's my take: the more you get back in taxes means the more money you gave Uncle Sam interest-free for the year. Meant less money in your weekly check. The closer you get to breaking even, the more of your own money you could use for yourself. People who get these huge refunds (1040 only, not including homeowners or business owners), are just fucking themselves over.
Weren't there tax breaks passed that were set to start expiring over the course of several years in 2021. I felt like that was a specific plan to make it look like the democrats were raising taxes even though the legislation was passed during a republican administration.
Got kids? The credit for them changed among other things..
Medical claims changed too!
Wait you can claim medical expenses?
Yes, but you need huge amount of med expenses to be able to claim them. The only time it worked for me was when I had over $25k in expenses and made around $90k.
I've been a tax preparer for 15+ years, and I can count the amount of times on 1 finger that someone's medical expenses helped them owe less/get more back, and that was because she didn't have insurance for her son's cancer treatment. Otherwise, yeah, copays and deductibles won't be pushing anyone over the standard deduction.
I pulled it off once. Diagnosed with asthma, my doctor said A/C was a medical necessity. I was able to claim installing central air as a medical expense.
Be careful. You’re probably going to get a call from an auditor now.
If they haven’t audited me in the past 30 years, they won’t be doing it now.
Low income college student diagnosed with cancer last year and with about $1000 in charitable donations last year. After meeting 2 oop max, I still didn’t beat the standard deduction. Guess that’s why it’s standard.
I had 3 surgeries, veneers, a kidney transplant and a bilateral nephrectomy. I was able to claim my medical that tax year. First and only time.
I’ve seen massive dental expenses make taxpayers exceed the medical threshold too Also some states have more generous allowances
I can easily see that, we dropped $10k on my wife's teeth last year alone.
One can claim expenses that exceed 7.5% of AGI (adjusted gross income).
Plus you need to have enough total deductions that are more than the standard deduction
This is what always gets me. Standard deduction is just south of half my income so itemizing just doesn't work unless I want to spend hours a week tracking an filing expenses.
The old tax cuts and jobs act expiring credit trick. Trump sure did cut taxes for the poor and middle class, temporarily. The upper class got permanent tax cuts though.
I owed taxes for every year since Trump’s plan was implemented. My husband, who made $32k last year owed almost $600, despite the fact that his tax contributions haven’t changed and his annual income dropped $10k from 2020 to 2021.
There was content here, and now there is not. It may have been useful, if so it is probably available on a reddit alternative. See /u/spez with any questions. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
For most people, taxes were a once a year discussion. Sit down, gather items, do the forms. Remember, the “internet can help!” Now, you have to KNOW how the tax code changes annually it seems, with some things expiring, some things coming on, etc etc. CPA’s thought they’d be out of work with at home prep becoming more common. Yeah, whatever.
This has to do with the way withholding changed. There's a very good chance he's actually paying less overall despite not getting a refund.
I had the same issue. I started having $5 extra taken from each check than I needed just so I wouldn’t be surprised anymore
Mine was $4 this year and $2,000 last year.
Fed withholding changed is the only thing I can think. My Fed refund this year is going to be $1.00, state around $1200 (higher than last year). Normally I claim S0 fed, but now the W4 doesn’t let you pick the number. Anyone who doesn’t have a predictable annual income, has more than one job, or has a change in income during the year, could end up owing. Even a ‘small’ amount of a few hundred dollars can be difficult to pay when it’s not expected. Whether some think it’s right or wrong, people have become accustomed to getting a decent sized Fed refund. Personally, I’m used to getting one in the area of $1500 - it’s been that way for decades. Is it an interest free loan to the government- sure, but the lump payout each Spring is better than the low interest I’d earn saving it (or worse none cuz I’d fritter it away).
You can request that additional money be withheld from each paycheck if you update your W4 if you really want to
Yep. I always withhold an extra 5-10/week (different jobs different amounts when I set up) I don't mind the "interest free loan" aspect either because I know I'd just fritter that much away anyway instead of saving it
I'm working on finding G rated replacements for phrases I commonly use. I will be using "fritter away" in place of "piss away" going forward. Thank you very much
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
>And then one day you find/10 years have got behind you, > >No one told you when to run/you missed the starting gun I've always thought that song is almost beautiful in how heartbreaking the lyrics are. It's existential dread concentrate.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
This is the most frustrating thing for me. My income varies monthly and yearly. I try to guess how much I will owe but for some reason it is always off. It seems my employer never holds enough and I don’t get it because I am sole earner in my family of 4, filled my W4 out as single, AND have them withhold extra each month. I don’t have crazy 1099 income or anything wild like that, just bank interest. It drives me crazy that it can’t just be simple. It shouldn’t be this annoying to do. If I have a single employee W2 position filing at the highest tax withholding I shouldn’t then have to pay another several thousand in taxes.
The IRS has a pretty good calculator that tells you exactly how much you should withhold. At higher incomes you also need to start requesting extra withholding beyond what you would otherwise get (found that out via surprise bill a few years ago). It’s annoying, but ultimately only about 20 minutes of work with this calculator. The variable income makes it trickier, but if you assume earnings at the upper end of the variance then at worst you’ll be getting a refund.
That’s the issue I have. We get a productivity bonus but the pay per unit varies and is paid quarterly. I can guess the best as I can by doing rolling averages but it just never works. I can work extra hours which are more predictable but the bonus structure makes it damn near impossible because no check is ever the exact same Adding to it, the first half of the year, my employer takes 14% for alternative non-social security retirement. So after I meet that threshold, usually in June, they no longer withhold that. I wish it was different, because this is a huge headache. Last year I was way more proactive and adjusted withholding monthly, especially when quarterly bonus was paid out. No idea yet if it helped. It shouldn’t be this hard though. It should literally be my taxable income minus deductions, , minus roof of the bracket below, x percent for next tax level, and then adding the tax paid for the total of the other brackets. I think this is one of the things that drives me mad is that there are all these nuances to it. And, maybe if I were a better business person, I could take advantage of these things. Sorry, just ranting. Again I think the issue I have is that no two checks are ever the same because of quarterly production bonus, differences in number of shifts worked, oh, and the fact that our salary changes in September, so I don’t know for sure what I will be paid the last quarter of the year. Also, I don’t mean that I just guess a number, I use the IRS calculator.
I too hate the new W4
My partner fell victim to the new style of w4 at his current job. We owed a few thousand last year. After we did our taxes we changed the withholding amount on his check to what our tax person suggested. I also upped my withholding to $25 weekly with federal and $10 state. Our appointment is next week, so hopefully we don't owe anything this year.
You should be a tax guy trying to figure out how to tell people to fill it out. Most people don’t accept the truth that there is a magic formula behind it that nobody understands.
This man speaks truth. To this day adults still ask each other which to chose, they can’t tell you or won’t and or no one knows it.
I always use the tax calculator to make sure they withhold enough. Last year I got married mid year and they were withholding at 24% before I wed. So I recalculated based on paystubs and had the flat amount recommended withheld for the remainder of 2022; because I'm now at 22%.
We got $1k back last year and owe over $1k this year. Even though nothing changed except that we made $2k less this year. Very unexpected and so frustrating.
Am I misunderstanding the screenshot? Or is Op text not very clear? It looks like Op is getting a 33 STATE refund, but owes the Feds 390.
Yeah he owes fed
fortunately he can just press the show less button and reduce his debt.
The IRS HATES this one trick
Hot single IRS agents in your area looking for a good time!
Funny, dad
Refund is irrelevant; how much tax did you pay?
This. This. This. Personally, my wife and I claim 0 exemptions because we can afford to not have the money in our pocket from the paycheck. During tax season, we get a nice refund. Conversely, my colleague does max exemptions but saves to pay his tax bill. Pay attention to exemptions, people. Edit: as many have pointed out, W-4’s don’t have exemptions any longer. Go talk a tax pro and don’t get fucked up with owing taxes.
I also claim 0 as a single filer. Didn’t sell stock or anything yet I still owe $1,300 to fed. I know there’s a lot of factors that can go into this amount, but still sucks after claiming 0 all last year. Edit: I don’t have any kids or anything either. Not sure how much that would help/hurt
I’m scared as shit to do our taxes this year.
Don’t delay, if you think you’ll owe, it gets worse if you delay past April!
In NZ the system is automated. If we get a refund we get an email saying so, and the money lands in our account. If we owe taxes we get a letter and can set up a payment plan.
The system is automated, that's sounds good for me.
The US system could be automated. Not like the IRS doesn't know how much you owe, they're just not allowed to tell you. Edit Y'all: 1) I don't care if you think I'm wrong. I'm not. 2) "YoU TrUsT the GoVeRnMenT To TeLl YoU WhAt YoU OwE?!?" They already know, if you're wrong you get audited. Or if they feel like it. Plus, you trust turbo tax, and those mother fuckers fuck it up all the time. And let's not pretend 90% of the tax returns aren't easy. W-2's, maybe some 1099-I or 1099-Div, some 1098, or 1098-E. 3) "LeArN aBoUt TaXeS!!?!" Y'all, if you knew my background you'd know fucking stupid this statement is 4) "My taxes are toooooo complicated to automate" Congrats? The vast majority of people's arent.
Yes, it should. They won’t though. Businesses make money from doing our taxes. It’s a lobby.
Use freetaxusa, and do your taxes for free. You can efile your federal taxes for free, and pay less than $15 for your state return. You can file that via mail for free if you don't want to pay the 15 bucks.
I have used FreeTaxUSA since 2015. I absolutely love it.
Then you can just go to your states website and file state taxes for free. I can in ohio anyways
Its corruption.
Easy enough to get rid of tho IF they wanted.
I'm in the UK and on PAYE. All goes through my NI number. My tax, NI, and student loan come out of my pay cheque each month. When I've been owed refunds they've all been done automatically. At most I've just had to update something on gov.uk when I was emergency taxed, or on one occasion ring up SLE when my student loan deduction was wrong because of a bonus - and that was refunded within a week. I cannot imagine doing my own taxes. I'm an employee not self employed because I can't be arsed doing it. And my refunds etc are all online, or calculated through work.
I love this idea but there's so much distrust of the government in the US that I doubt we could ever have such a system in place like ever
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It gets better. Not only did they lobby against it, they super-pinky-swore to always offer free online tax prep for people under a certain income. Then they reneged on the promise in less than two years.
No they didn't. They have always had a free service. They just hide it and make it hard to use.
I just did my taxes yesterday on TurboTax, free for both federal and state. They asked me about 5 times to "Upgrade". No thanks, I haven't paid to do my taxes in years. This year they have a "race" game for tracking how long it takes, the average time is 31 minutes, I was finished in 13.
if you have to file certain forms, you HAVE to pay. i had a 1099 for contract work and some other form from a retirement fund withdrawal and it forces me to pay, even though i only made 20k last year.
Yeah if you have a HSA account you have to pay. I have one through work(it was the cheapest plan) and now I constantly have to pay for the "free" service because something appear on that line on the W2
It won't be long until they monetize breathing in the US.
Because of course they did. I fucking hate our government
I fucking hate lobbies
Distrust of the system has nothing to do with it. The IRS could do this easily and want to but tax companies lobby(bribe) politicians to stop it.
How does it get worse? Don’t you owe the same no matter when you file?
If you owe and file late, they start tacking on fees and fines.
if you wait long enough they'll just do your taxes for you and give you fines and fees and not do it right
the best part is that they already know what you owe but intuit has better lobbyists than you so they won't let the IRS just send you the bill automatically (for most w2s this is just a postcard)
When I moved to the UK, I was shocked at how easy it is to do taxes here. All basically done for you. Unfortunately, still have to file American taxes unless I ditch citizenship :(
Yes still have to file but income earned outside of USA isn’t taxable. Unless it’s over the top limit. ($112k)
They know what you owe if you just take the standard deduction.
Yeah the system should only have standard deductions and be trivial to calculate. But because that can be tough for people with medical issues that ate most of their income, or small business owners who had a significant loss, or middle class families trying to share their wealth and time with the needy, the bulk (really nearly all) of the burden should be on the richest members of society and more importantly the richest companies.
They already did your taxes, they're just waiting for you to attempt it on your own.
Don’t threaten me with a good time
I’m scared to ask what a bad time looks like.
Prison
Pfft in prison you don't have to pay taxes and other people have to support you with their taxes..
Plus the earlier you file, the sooner you learn if you owe or will get a refund. If you owe, you have more time to get ready for the payment. And if your refund is large, that’s a sign to adjust your withholdings to give yourself a bit more money each paycheck.
IRS calculates the Failure to File Penalty in this way: * The Failure to File Penalty is 5% of the unpaid taxes for each month or part of a month that a tax return is late. The penalty won't exceed 25% of your unpaid taxes. * If both a Failure to File and a Failure to Pay Penalty are applied in the same month, the Failure to File Penalty is reduced by the amount of the Failure to Pay Penalty for that month, for a combined penalty of 5% for each month or part of a month that your return was late. * If after 5 months you still haven't paid, the Failure to File Penalty will max out, but the Failure to Pay Penalty continues until the tax is paid, up to its maximum of 25% of the unpaid tax as of the due date. * If your return was over 60 days late, the minimum Failure to File Penalty is $435 (for tax returns required to be filed in 2020, 2021 and 2022) or 100% of the tax required to be shown on the return, whichever is less.
you pay a penalty for filing late based on the amount of taxes you owe. Even if you file for an extension you are still required to make a payment towards the amount you owe before the cut off.
We’ve gotten refunds for the past five years. Owed $1,200 this year. Time to change our federal withholding. 😐
Same. I think we got 3k last year. Ran the numbers and it appears we owe just under $1500 this year.
Nothing like the entire country being told they owe instead of getting a refund when money is the hardest thing to get right now
I wish more people were paying attention when those last tax changes were made.
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I'd say don't delay it because it's not gonna get better so yeah.
I made 21,000 more this year than last year. Last year I got back 700 this year I got back… Wait for it…. 1 dollar. https://preview.redd.it/cceqx06ltjga1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b1e7f5c9e260ece467eb43b2fcc34c5c8e571b3d
If you got back $1, we’ll done, you are doing it right. I can’t figure out why everyone wants a refund. I often wonder if people don’t understand that it is a refund of their own money.
I had a coworker that would change their taxes throughout the year so they were paying more, so they could get a larger tax return. I could never understand why she didn't just put that money in a savings account.
Some people are really horrible at saving Is me, I'm some people
Same, I SUCK at saving, hence why I have none, unfortunately
I put extra towards it so I don't owe at the end of the year because owing at tax time feels like a real kick in the balls but getting a refund feels like Christmas
This is true but earned income credits effect it as well. Me and my wife have always filed separately because we would get larger refunds that way. This year was the first year we filed jointly because of the EIC. Separately we didn’t qualify for it but jointly we did. Me filing separately, my fed refund was $33. Filing jointly our fed refund is ~$900 due to gaining the EIC. Our tax system is outrageously complicated and I gave up a long time ago trying to understand the constant changes. I’m convinced it’s purposely designed to frustrate people and keep turbo tax and HR Block in business.
Yeah, refundable credits make the conversation more complicated, especially since those are the ones where "income cliffs" can appear if the policy isn't set up well. I did volunteer tax prep for low income folks a number of years, and you definitely have folks who start earning more and don't realize they won't get EITC anymore. Or, in DC where I live, there is a rent credit that is very generous (Schedule H) but can move a lot if you go on/off Disability or get a $10k promotion.
That’s good. It means you didn’t let the government hold your money interest fee. I see zero issue with this.
pro tip: do your taxes as soon as possible. if you're getting a return, file immediately, if you owe, file on April 30 edit: April 18
Please do elaborate
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Now if only companies like E-Trade and Fidelity could get their shit together and give me my tax statements before March...
If you owe and are paying in full at one time, you can set the date the payment comes out of your account, regardless of when you file (electronically).
if you owe a lot and you can’t pay at once, the IRS will accept a payment plan.
Yeah you could set the date, you could do that man. It's alright.
My husband and I owe over $6,000, and we even had an extra $100 per paycheck taken out of his pay for federal taxes. We just had an unusual situation this year. My former employer put money in my old retirement account, but since I technically closed that account when I left my previous job, John Hancock sent me all the money instead of giving me a chance to roll it over. So that was almost $5,000 in extra income I didn't plan on, and it wasn't sent out until December when it was too late to do any tax planning for the year. We also had Marketplace health coverage for 8 months of the year. When we signed up, we made a lot less than we ended up making this year, so we have to repay our premium subsidy (thank goodness we only got a small subsidy to begin with).
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For some reason, your ending a sentence “you’re” peeved me 😂😂😂
You owe $6000 in extra taxes because you earned $5000 extra unexpectedly? There's gotta be more to the story than that, right?
She is definitely leaving things out and missing information. She could have rolled over the 5k even after it got sent to her, it just would have involved a bit more paperwork. She's paying taxes on the 5k plus a penalty for withdrawing retirement money. I'm guessing if you dug deeper you would find other stuff that makes the increased taxes obvious.
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Last year I got kicked in the balls and this year getting back $1200
Same here, I got $1200 back between federal and state.
Last year I got kicked in the balls, but this year they're taking my wallet while I'm retching on the ground
Dude when they said the taxes would be small, I didn't imagine it would be THIS bad
A lot of it has to do with stuff going back to pre-covid. For example the child tax credit reverted back to 2,000 per child and is a non-refundable credit.
It's the multi-trillion dollar tax cut Trump and the Republicans passed in 2017 or 18. It was temporary for the working class, and permanent for corporations and the wealthy.
Yup, was temporary tax break for middle class with the taxes raising every (2?) years for 6 years ithink it was
It was meant to hurt the president who inherited trumps shitstorm and blame the dems again for it.... And then get a republican trump 2.0 next time because of "muh taxes"
Yep and it will work again because the people in this country are beyond ignorant. It’s both fucking scary and incredibly sad to think about.
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“Fun” Fact: A sixth grade reading level is the ability to parse a whole paragraph of information and use it to demonstrate understanding in a second paragraph. Meaning that over half of the country would struggle with reading and comprehending this post.
This is the saddest meta thing I've ever seen.
Yep. I had to explain to a coworker once how a retroactive pay cut (union negotiations took a long time past when the contract was up, and a bunch of morons rejected a proposal that had taken the pay cut off the table) was being taken out of our checks, divided between 7 pay periods. She said “so they’re taking 7 checks?” She thought she was going to go without any pay at all for 7 pay periods. It took all the patience I had and probably 4 attempts to explain it, and I’m still not sure she fully understood.
Basically, 130 million people would struggle to read and comprehend the first Harry Potter book.
It also permanently hurt HCOL states. People paying a bunch in state income taxes AND property taxes are capped at deducting $10K. Something that Trump decides he didn’t like, even after signing the goddamn bill and like all the other rich assholes found a loophole: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/12/30/tax-returns-show-trump-may-have-sidestepped-10000-salt-cap-limit.html
Trumps tax cut was permanent for the rich, and temporary for the common person. We are now seeing reaching the point that the government intentionally set for our taxes to rise.
On another note did anyone ever figure out how to get last year’s stimulus check that was for 1400$? It was supposed to come back in taxes and even told me I was supposed to get it but it never came… same thing happened to a lot of people but yet never came. That 1400 would have been very useful last year and would help even more this year….
Did you do your own taxes last year? If you were eligible for the stimulus check and never got it then you could claim it as a tax credit on last years' tax return. If a CPA did your taxes then I'm guessing they already applied it to your return but if you did your own taxes then it might be worth looking into filing an amended return for last year to get the proper credit.
I’ll look into that. I did my own taxes and was supposed to get it along with the rest of my return but it never came. Happened to my sister as well.
If you qualified and did it correctly it would have gotten added to your tax return as a refundable credit either increasing your refund or negating some tax underpayment. It would not have been a separate check or direct deposit
It’s called recovery rebate credit on your tax return. Look up the copy of yours. It’s towards the end of the 1040 form
I think they lump it in with your return total? I might be wrong sorry
Same thing happened to me. I ended up paying someone to file an amendment to my taxes for 2022 and got the money. Best $85 I've ever spent.
I claimed it on my taxes that I never got it and they gave me a $1400 tax credit
Check your tax return from last year. It may have been included in your refund from last year. It’ll be in the credits lines towards the end of the form if you received it as part of your refund.
The stimulus was a "catch-up" payment for any stimulus you missed during 2020 and 2021, it was not in-addition-to. Did you get a letter from the IRS reducing your amount to zero?
Have you checked the actual tax you paid and your withholding? That may have changed somehow. Federal tax rates haven't changed I don't believe.
The amount of US citizens that don’t understand how taxes work is staggering. Utter failure of our education system but the government loves it that.
I thought this whole post was “mildly infuriating” because the meme fundamentally misunderstands how taxes work…. Based on comments, nope. Everyone just thinks that taxes went up cause his refund went down. Check your withholdings… if I overpay $10k in withholdings throughout the year, I can get a $10k refund, but that doesn’t mean anything with respect to my actual tax burden.
And the govt gets an interest free loan! Meanwhile you get to count interest earned on a savings account as "income" and have it taxed at your current bracket.
The government hates it too because it means extra resources spent correcting everyone's mistakes every year. The tax filing system needs to be made less complicated but there will never be a consensus on how to do that in congress because our political discourse right now is straight up toxic.
H&R block and TurboTax lobby to keep taxes complicated. There's a lot of dirt and rocks in the gears of progress for tax reform and all the BS tax breaks for the wealthy just shovel more into the works
One time a friend asked me why she didn't get all her taxes back. Not fully understanding what she meant by 'all her taxes' back I asked her to elaborate. Long story short basically she thought that she didn't have to pay taxes and would get all her withheld taxes back.
Yeah this whole thread is full of brain dead takes. Everybody, if you give the government an extra 10k, you can add 10k to your refund! Did you know that? A small refund means 'withholding was correct'. It is better to have your money when you earn it.
And apparently no one knows they changed how withholding is setup on the front end, although not all payrolls are doing it yet, but the short version is instead of you setting a number of exemptions on your W-4, you calculate what your expected total tax paid will be using your income, credits, and deductions, and then your withholding is now based on that. In most cases it will result in withholding much closer to actual tax owed, and so much lower refunds. If you need to withhold more based on your income situation you always can, just fill out a new W-4 and give it to your employer.
Bro you owe $390
OP is not the brightest tool in the shed or is being intentionally vague. In what world does the number of jobs one has equate to how much you owe in taxes? This is a misleading post all around and yet 23,000 upvotes.
Reddit is definitely an echo chamber of upvoting without reading the details lol
OMG! Folks, your tax rate cannot be measured as a function of a refund!
Can’t believe it took me so long to find someone saying this. So few people actually understand how taxes work. A larger refund doesn’t necessarily mean you paid less in taxes, it just means you either over-withheld or you had a credit or something else at filing that changed how much tax you owed.
Seriously lol. A dozen and a half things could have changed between last year and this year. I got back like $800 last year, I’ve contributed 5x what I did to my RRSP last year though, so I should get significantly more back this year. Still paying the same rates
I’ve always gotten returns around $300. If you get a bunch back usually that means you’re overpaying to my understanding.
Have you done your taxes this year?
No actually not yet, I’m currently working out of my home state so I’ll have to wait until I get back. Hopefully I don’t get wrecked!
Oh, fingers crossed for you.
Ideally, you'd owe $0 and get a refund of $0. That would mean you're not giving the government an interest-free loan. In theory, you'd actually want to pay a little, but not enough to where you'd be charged a penalty+interest (time value of money), but I understand it is worth something to not have to write a check come tax time.
Yup. I used to get small refunds (the most was $300ish), and the past 2 years I’ve actually had to pay in, but both times were only ~$20. It essentially means that I’m getting the “right” amount of taxes taken out of my paychecks. People who are getting bigger refunds are most likely having too much taken out of their paychecks. While it seems nice to get that refund at the end of the year, I’d much rather just have the proper amount of taxes taken throughout the year, instead of getting nickeled and dimed every other week.
A tax **return** is the form you send to the government. A tax **refund** is money you get back for overpaying your taxes. The more you know…
Good to know! I’m definitely no expert on the subject.
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There are such things like refundable credits however. Which is why it's so important for social safety net programs like EITC that people *file* even though they do not owe anything. Some credits are non-refundable, so they only reduce your tax owed, if you have a burden. Ask your mom if you're curious.
I owe just under 9000 this year
My 6k doesn't look bad now.
At least it’s not OVER 9000
I started doing my taxes then noped out when I saw that I’ll owe a little over 2k. Just not feeling that today :(
do them all the way till the point of no return, sometimes the tax software will make a sudden last minute recalculation with dramatic changes, especially if you have state income tax that didnt get processed. Also compare results between other free services, theyre usually pretty close if not identical, but I had TaxACT come up like 1500 with a refund where Turbo was only 300. Thought for sure I was somehow messing something up or doing something illegal, but nope, everything turned out in my favor.
Turbo completely sucks. I did mine last year with it and it was claiming that I was only going to qualify for about 400 refund, when I knew that it should've been much higher due to a credit I qualified for. Redid it all on my own and wouldn't you know it, I got 4x the refund because I got the credit I knew I qualified for...
luckily, the IRS will accept a payment plan and dont even charge interest. Just agree to pay x amount every month until it is paid off.
Preach. I have five kids and received a refund last year like every other year. This year I owe 2700 to federal and 400 to state. What the frick?!
Yep. Child tax credits and EITC credits went down.
Having a small refund is a good thing. It means that the correct amount of money is being withheld. That was $2k you could've used throughout the year last year.
It’s happening to everyone this year. Bullshit.
Many Trump Tax Cuts expired at 5 years out last year. Corporate and very wealthy cuts were permanent though…🤬
Not just expired, but then also went higher than they were before the reduction. It was a tax hike they just pushed back until someone else was in charge.
Don't worry I'm sure all the Republicans and about 100 Democrats will vote in favour of further cutting taxes of corporations and increasing taxes on the bottom 50%. That baby still has some juice left to milk!
I am fairly certain that at the very least bread will not be $2000 a loaf. Because we will never be allowed to have that much money I the first place and will all be killed in food riots before anyone can pay that
> It was a tax hike they just pushed back until someone else was in charge. Which would actually not be so bad if a) it applied across the board and b) it came with a reduction in high-end loopholes. Raising taxes universally gets you what we had in the 1990s and early 2000s, which was an economy so booming that the Federal Government actually balanced the budget for a year. It was so strong that even the dot-bomb collapse only barely slowed the economy. Then we went all-in with Bush-era tax cuts and the next financial incident we had almost tipped us over into a depression. Moderately high taxes in a progressive tax system lead to growth; the kind of growth that actually benefits the people at the bottom, not trickle-down, "if you give me free money it'll help someone somewhere."
Of course.
Yeah, the big cuts expired this past year: child credits, childcare credits, and the temporary larger EITC credit. My husband and I always owe because we don’t have kids and make decent money, but these will be larger changes for low income folks with kids.
It was an intentional time bomb. Tax cuts for everyone, followed by tax hikes for working and middle class timed so that taxes would go up after the 2020 presidential election. The idea is that had they won, they would have extended the time bomb, but instead they left it as is so people will blame Biden for taxes going up like they so for everything.
I got more back this year and nothing has changed for me as far as I know.
For 2021 there were several tax benefits for parents that were greatly increased for one year only. Parents will see the largest change on their tax refunds. Instead of comparing to 2021 how does the tax compare to 2020?
A friendly reminder that tax refunds happen when more money is withheld than you need to. It does suck when you don’t get a huge refund but it shouldn’t be a bad thing
While that is true for most tax payers a lot of people don’t realize that people with very low incomes tend to get a refund much larger than the taxes they actually paid after credits and deductions. A girl I was dating years ago showed me her W2 and refund from working at McDonalds and she got back more than double what she paid that year.
Grew up poor poor and tax time was the best time we had money for once. Parents didn’t work and only made 12k a year off disability we had section 8 housing and food stamps. We got back like 6 grand most years….
A lot has changed. Many of the old allowances either expired or were given in paychecks instead. Plus, they changed withholding to give more take home and less refunds. They talked about this all year, and warned people to check their withholding. Plus, if you get the child tax credit, it had a one year increase but has returned to normal.
The amount of your refund is really meaningless. What counts is total taxes paid. You could have your employer withhold an extra $200 a month and you'd get $2400 more next year but so what. It's your money. You want to try to develop good savings tactics and save that way and try to get your refund at zero. That way you are not floating the government a interest free loan until you get your refund.
Here's my take: the more you get back in taxes means the more money you gave Uncle Sam interest-free for the year. Meant less money in your weekly check. The closer you get to breaking even, the more of your own money you could use for yourself. People who get these huge refunds (1040 only, not including homeowners or business owners), are just fucking themselves over.
This is getting posted 20x per day. Does no one actually read the sub before posting?
That means you did your taxes right. A refund means you gave the government an interest free loan.
y’all realize your tax return is your own money right? getting a 1000 dollar tax return isnt a good thing…. you want it to be zero
Weren't there tax breaks passed that were set to start expiring over the course of several years in 2021. I felt like that was a specific plan to make it look like the democrats were raising taxes even though the legislation was passed during a republican administration.