It's been a good year if that's the case, or the local's raised taxes!

Or the government dropped withholding values.

I owe 900 in debt to my old apartments because i bailed a month early. WAS gonna get a PS4 and a graphics card. Im pretty bummed about it.

couldn't you just increase your pre-tax contributions, like 401k or HSA, to get into a lower bracket?

It's not uncommon (especially if you file jointly) to end up owing if you don't have them hold extra out each time. The wife and I have to hold out an extra $250/month or so.

a RETURN? ROFL

like i said in the other thread that were buying the oldest child a car so she will move out.

Hookers and blow. Blow and hookers.

Thank you Obama.

hmm, we DO have a 401k, dunno how that would work though at this point...

If you contribute through work, just increase your contributions.

how does that retroactively affect 2014 though?

oh, maybe I misunderstood his post, thought he was suggesting I put money into the 401k to lower my 2014 income.

You're too late for 2014. Nothing you can do now.

No, but if you know it's going to happen again in 2015, you can prepare for it now by increasing your contribution.

guess I better. I hate how my company does bonuses, they just appear and I didn't have a chance to review anything.

I like mine. I don't get it until after the new year. Let's me plan all year long for it.

hopefully pay off the audit I had 3 years ago

I owe $1800

Just enough for my electric bill and a tank of gas..... Looks like I have to pay a little extra next year or they said I'd have to pay in.

Common misconception. Only the money earned beyond the new tax bracket is taxed at the higher rate. Everything under was taxed at the prior rate. It's called a progressive tax system for this very reason. It's always better to earn more.

I'm going to build my own tadpole wheel. You see, when I was young my grandpa had a wheel with tadpoles nailed to it. He'd spin it around and yell "TADPOLES IS A WINNER! TADPOLES IS A WINNER!" We thought that was kind of strange, but then we had some growing up to do.

Pay off credit card debt from medical bills. ****ing awesome, I tell you.

8 nights in Greece, 4 in Rome. (Return only paid for my flights)

Not 1 person has said that they're gonna buy Chiefs season tickets LMAO

Thinking a really high-end escort.

You're doing it wrong.

Take it and go get me a nice piece of ass.

How do you know what I am doing?

Part of it for some camera gear and the other part for walking around money during a March trip to New York.

What camera gear?

Would you be so kind as to chime in on this: http://www.chiefsplanet.com/bb/showp...&postcount=308

I don't, but if you are having to pay in $1,800 as a single person with an average job (I'm assuming that you aren't consistently in the upper tax bracket) then there are things you could be doing to lower your tax burden and keep more of your money in your pocket.

Explain this to me then... When I added in my wife's W2 (she earned 25% of what I earned in '14) our federal return dropped by 60%. I don't see how that could have happened unless all our taxable income was taxed in the higher bracket.

Tell her to stay at home and make you a sandwich.

Sounds like she's not withholding very much. If you have a lower income (which presumably she does unless you're making $1m and she's making $250,000), then the default in most payrolls is that you won't be paying much or anything in taxes. So little or nothing gets taken out.

But she's not paying low taxes because her income gets stacked on top of yours. So she's actually paying a pretty high rate, and she's paying it on all of her income since your income has already sucked up the exemptions and deductions for the most part. So the little person with the green eyeshade wants a lot of tax money from her as the day of reckoning arrives.

The kind that lets you finish in the butt? That is classy.

She lets you finish and then squirts it back out into a martini glass to gargle in front of you.

Dinner and a show. Dinner for her. Show for you.

So if my income took us to the edge of a bracket, all of her taxable income would be taxed at the higher bracket. And since her income was originally taxed at a much lower rate than the higher bracket, the difference is sucked back out of of the refund. I guess that makes sense. It makes me wonder if it would have been better to file individually instead of jointly.

That is ****ing disgusting

Sam Adams. To wash the taste of cigarettes and joker spit from my mouth. From the hooker and blow binge.

Most of us middle class people without kids won't get much, so probably not much of anything.

Now if I was a poor, uneducated dipshit on the earned income tax credit with 5 or 6 mouth breathing kids to my name, I'm sure I'd be doing all kinds of crazy shit like buying big screen TV's, guns, new vinyl furniture etc.

Flat Tax please.

I'm honestly a bit puzzled by all of the "I won't get much because XXX" posts. Refunds are mostly driven by your withholdings - not your tax bracket. If you are having to pay in, you should withhold more on your W-4. If you are getting a huge refund, you should increase your exemptions on your W-4.

Really just depends on the specific situation. Most of the time you're better off filing jointly, as there are certain benefits that you can only get if you file jointly (especially with regard to certain deductions). Here's a high-level overview:

https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tool.../INF20137.html

Unless you like getting a huge refund. I like getting a huge refund, which is why I increased my withholdings.

I pay a crap load! It sucks.

True, and nothing wrong with that (though the financial gurus will tell you that you're giving the government an interest-free loan that way).

It does suck.


But, with the choice of making what I do now and paying, or making what I used to and getting scraps back, the decision is easy.

As opposed to giving it to the bank for record low interest rates? It's a wash.

Don't care, though, honestly. It's forced savings for me, and at the end of each year I get a fat check the wife and I can use to fritter away on something we want but don't need.

This.

I don't think the people touting the "its a mistake to get a refund" thing are putting it in a savings account for 1% interest. They invest in something with a higher return.

I can see the benefit - profit off the money rather than letting it sit around doing nothing. But I know nothing about investing so haven't tried it.

This

I will take at least 3-5% on thousands of dollars instead of 0%.

For people that don't have the discipline to save, overpaying is far better, though.

It would take a pretty extreme situation for it to matter a lot. If Option A is to get a $6k refund and Option B is to invest $500 per month at 10% interest (which would be REALLY good for a conservative investment), you'd end up with about $6300 at the end of the year (in very rough numbers). So your best case scenario is making an extra $300, and for most people, it'd probably be closer to $30.

Like you can earn any interest in the meantime.

I have a side business that is highly variable on whether I get income or not. I can make anywhere from nothing (like last year) to $7-8,000. Since I don't know if I am going to be finding any work or not (engineering consulting), I maxed out my withholdings to cover the unplanned income. It can mean large returns but it also prevents any unpleasant surprises come tax season.

This. In my case it is the % of my operating note.

Here's the deal. Your wife's withholdings assume that she is the only one making money. So if it is a low wage, it will not withhold very much because most of it would be eaten up by the standard deduction. So when your wage fills up the lower tax brackets, and her wages are taxed at a higher rate, you're under withheld. It doesn't matter which dollar fills the exemptions and the brackets, but the higher the income, the more withholdings there are. And since your wife's wages are low, the percentage is low.

I run into that with some part time work I do. But I don't care enough to change it. If you want to change it, figure up how much % of gross wages your tax was, and then compare that to your wifes, and have her withhold the difference.

Example using totally arbitrary numbers.

Gross wages: $100,000 (both you and your wifes gross from W-2)
Taxes Due: $30,000 (what's due plus what was withheld)
Tax Rate: 30%

Wife Wage: $25,000
Taxes withheld: $2,000
30% of her Gross: $7,500
Difference: $5,500

have her withhold an extra 458.33 per month and that should get dang close.

Be sure you keep track of expenses. If you don't make anything, be sure to keep track of expenses and carry over the loss.

Yeah, I actually had a $75 loss this year.

Yeah, I assume Dave Ramsey or someone once said "it's an interest free loan to the government!" and now that's the cool thing to say, even though no one actually does anything with that money, except maybe spend it.

And that's what it comes down to

Exactly

Personally, I wish that they'd roll with a schedule of deposits like they've had every other year.

This update once a day shit is for the birds. I got bills to pay hookers to rent and blow to..uh...blow.

I'd still rather spend it on what I needed to keep work coming in if I were self employed though. Like advertising or a new computer, a tablet etc.

With my tax return, I'm going to neg rep Coochie Liquor. Y'all should do the same!!

If you were self employed and got a refund, it would mean you made less money because the estimates based on prior years income were overstated. You'd need to reinvest it, or at least replenish operating capital.

True, if I didn't finish my BBA and get the Federal educational credit, I wouldn't have got much at all. I actually owed $39 to the state.

Got my return deposit today and I've already paid off two credit cards.

My payment comes out Monday. It's not too bad this year.

Heh.

I don't know if you're just trying to be a dick or it comes natural but I will throw my intellect up against yours any day of the week.


Signed,
a poor, educated dipshit who got eic due to 1 kid

Middle class here, no kids. Pretty substantial return for me.

(Of course, it's because the wife and I actually withhold extra because: 1. we had to pay our first year together, and that ****ing sucked; and 2. we like a big fat check this time of year to take care of larger projects like paying down debt, house repairs/upgrades, or buying things like cars outright.)

I hate people that get returns. Passionately.

and yet I was able to sleep well last night....with bills paid and money in the bank.

Why? Jealousy or because you hate us giving the government an interest free loan or something else?

My wife and I are middle class too with no kids and our return was a nice chunk of change. We received both a state and federal return within 2 weeks which was quicker than last year. We don't carry debt besides my student loans so some is going to investments, some to student loans and the rest to the car I am buying from my FIL. Beats paying someone this time of year!

It's because he's rich and makes a fun ton but doesn't want to pay taxes. He also hates the poor like you and I.

Nah dude. You hate taxes. People are cool.

He has to pay SE tax.

I haven't received state yet. No idea when I will either. Experience tells me it could be anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 months. Alabama sucks.

I got the federal in 6 days, which might be a record for me.

Oh, well I can appreciate that. The year my wife was a contract employee (massage therapy) sucked come tax time. (It didn't help we lived in two states and between the two of us and the move we had five jobs.)

All states suck. They're all broke.