Anyone nervous to do their taxes?

[deide71]

Ugh! It was worse than I thought. We are owe almost 5K.

The tax “cut” increased our taxes by 4700

 

[wishuponastar1984]

Ditto... last year was closer to 4k... but UGH.. i am always nervous.

If you don't want to owe that much at the end of the year then get with your HR department at your company and have them adjust your W-4 withholding. You are way under-withholding. This isn't voodoo magic. I have an additional $$ withheld from every check due to investment income. I just want to get close and not have to owe a big check.

 

[barkley]

If you don't want to owe that much at the end of the year then get with your HR department at your company and have them adjust your W-4 withholding. You are way under-withholding. This isn't voodoo magic. I have an additional $$ withheld from every check due to investment income. I just want to get close and not have to owe a big check.

it's also possible to do separate filings for state and fed withholdings. when we lived in a state w/ income tax it never failed that if we filed the right for fed then the state withholdings were off, if we tweaked it for state then the fed would be off. our cpa told us to go in to h/r and ask for 2 separate w-4's and what status to file under for each (h/r didn't think it could be done but after some research found it was legal for us to do so and their payroll system was even set up to do it-they just didn't know about cuz no one had ever asked to do so). we've always preferred to have the money throughout the year vs. getting a refund.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'm impressed that folks are able to file so early. We have 1 tax document in-hand and are waiting on about 5 others to arrive. So not filing soon.

It just depends on your situation.

We have 1 mortgage but the information is readily available for us to get online. I did just get the physical paperwork yesterday showing what we paid in interest but that was available online weeks ago.

My husband has 1 student loan (he consolidated 2 years ago) and his is available online. I have 3 student loans. Federal is available online, but the other two haven't been posted online yet. Normally the one loan owned by Wells Fargo presently is available online around the 18-20th of January but I still haven't received it yet. BUT that really may be due to the interest amount I paid and if that was enough to generate a form. We're holding off on doing our taxes to wait and see if we get the forms in the mail for my student loans just after the legal date of mailing by Jan 31st.

But normally we can file fairly quickly with our situation.

 

[1st*toright]

I agree...I have often said you should not have to be a CPA to do your own taxes. I am a CPA but all my experience has been in financial accounting and never in tax. However over the last few years I "retired" to be a stay at home mom while at the same time running our family business and a couple other side accounting jobs. Those have forced me to learn more than I would like to about taxes. And it is still a little confusing for me to do our own taxes! Mainly when it comes to investment income, capital gains, etc. But still...

Yep- I'm a CPA, and I am actually a tax person, but my practice is all corporate, so even I don't actually know much more than the average Joe about personal income taxes, really. Our taxes are a mess- we have rental real estate, DH has a couple of different W-2 type jobs plus a Sched. C business, we had a couple different HSAs this year, income in 2 different states, lots of documentation to pull together. I've entered most of it in Turbo tax (really just waiting on one more W-2 at this point), and we overwithheld by a lot this year. I knew that was going to happen (most of it is from some stock options I exercised and knew the rate they were withholding at was going to be high), but DH's income is a little variable, so I wasn't able to get a very good bead on our withholding. Not a fan of providing a loan to the government, but it is what it is. Because we were capped out of the child tax credit before, I think we are in about the same place we would have been pre-tax reform, even with the SALT limitation etc. I did see the new deduction come through for our rental real estate business.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

you have to pay CITY income taxes too?

I don't know where exactly in Missouri the PP lives but in Kansas City, Missouri if you work within the city's boundaries you have to pay a 1% earnings income tax regardless of living in that exact city and then all KCMO residents must all pay that even if they don't work in KCMO city limits. KCMO is a very large city too.

They also do it in St. Louis but I don't know the specifics there because I don't live near there.

 

[kymom99]

you have to pay CITY income taxes too?

We do in Kentucky

 

[ctinct]

you have to pay CITY income taxes too?

My daughter will be filing her first income taxes this year, but only on a few months of work. Federal, state, and city, with the kicker being that because she lives and works in the city, her city taxes will be more than someone who just works in the city. Philly. However, she doesn’t have to pay taxes on her car, which is one of the ways the town I live in raises its funds. You know, I don’t know how real estate taxes work in Philly, either. Her boyfriend owns the home they live in, so he may get hit all sorts of ways with taxes.

 

[Superchikk]

Ugh! It was worse than I thought. We are owe almost 5K.

The tax “cut” increased our taxes by 4700

I'm afraid we are going to be in the same situation this year.

 

[barkley]

My daughter will be filing her first income taxes this year, but only on a few months of work. Federal, state, and city, with the kicker being that because she lives and works in the city, her city taxes will be more than someone who just works in the city. Philly. However, she doesn’t have to pay taxes on her car, which is one of the ways the town I live in raises its funds. You know, I don’t know how real estate taxes work in Philly, either. Her boyfriend owns the home they live in, so he may get hit all sorts of ways with taxes.

i am more and more glad to live in a state where we don't have a state income tax let alone local ones. sure, if you own a home you've got property taxes (low compared to allot of other states), but other than sales tax, what i feel to be VERY low vehicle registration fees (at least as compared to what i paid in california decades ago) and some kind of state tax on real estate sales that's it for the average employed or retired person.

 

[MillauFr]

i am more and more glad to live in a state where we don't have a state income tax let alone local ones. sure, if you own a home you've got property taxes (low compared to allot of other states), but other than sales tax, what i feel to be VERY low vehicle registration fees (at least as compared to what i paid in california decades ago) and some kind of state tax on real estate sales that's it for the average employed or retired person.

We are in the same situation in Seattle. No state income taxes, no city income taxes, low property tax rates, we only have 1 car so we don't pay much vehicle taxes. Sales tax is high but that is easily avoided on big purchases by buying online or going to the Costco in Tigard, Oregon. The problem is that many people from higher tax areas have figured out that if you are making a huge income that Seattle is a tax haven. People have been pouring in here like crazy and the city is one of the fastest growing large cities in the country. Doesn't bother me too much as I don't drive a car that much.

 

[barkley]

We are in the same situation in Seattle. No state income taxes, no city income taxes, low property tax rates, we only have 1 car so we don't pay much vehicle taxes. Sales tax is high but that is easily avoided on big purchases by buying online or going to the Costco in Tigard, Oregon. The problem is that many people from higher tax areas have figured out that if you are making a huge income that Seattle is a tax haven. People have been pouring in here like crazy and the city is one of the fastest growing large cities in the country. Doesn't bother me too much as I don't drive a car that much.

what gets me is the influx of people over here on the east side of the state b/c the cost of living is so much lower and they can work from home for the higher paying seattle tech firms. we've got an insane lack of housing already-and when the new amazon fulfillment center opens here is the fall it's anyone's guess where the staff will live (they may have to head to idaho and commute because there's a whole lot of nothing else in any other directions).

 

[wendow]

it's also possible to do separate filings for state and fed withholdings. when we lived in a state w/ income tax it never failed that if we filed the right for fed then the state withholdings were off, if we tweaked it for state then the fed would be off. our cpa told us to go in to h/r and ask for 2 separate w-4's and what status to file under for each (h/r didn't think it could be done but after some research found it was legal for us to do so and their payroll system was even set up to do it-they just didn't know about cuz no one had ever asked to do so). we've always preferred to have the money throughout the year vs. getting a refund.

Interesting! Ours are always off. I get refund from the feds but owe the state. I try to get it about even...ain't giving anyone a free loan but don't want to dig deep to pay one...This year, it's off. I'm getting much more back from the feds than I owe the state. I don't get why there is such a difference. BUT I am not a tax person at all and while I enjoy doing my taxes, I would not say I understand all the nuances.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

I am. I had some changes this year so I'm not sure how it's going to play out. Got an email at work yesterday that our w2s were in the mail, but we could access them online, tried to get on our payroll site and it's frozen on login screen!

 

[mrudman]

I'm getting back a lot less than normal this year, :-(. Normally I'll get a decent amount back, but with the deletion of the exemptions for my daughters, and also me going from married to head of household, I really took a hit. The increase in the standard deduction helped a little, but still getting a lot less back this year.

 

[twoolle]

I feel like lots of people only look at the refund or amount due total and compare that to prior year. But really to know the difference from year to year we should be looking at the net tax amount from year to year (meaning net of child tax credits, earned income credit, etc).

 

[Ngwira]

Relieved that we only owe $97 fed and refund with state. I’ll take it.

 

[Summer2018]

I have no idea how it's going to fall out. The child tax credit increase and reduced phaseouts will be good, but the reduced SALT deduction and no exemptions scare me. I also have some self-employment income and I've heard there's a new deduction for that, but I haven't done any research yet.

Anyone been pleasantly surprised?

The government still owes me $900 from last year. We amended our return in April, and we are still waiting for our money. I'm not looking forward to this year after my raise. We are close to being at the point of not getting a refund and possibly having to pay.

 

[MEM]

Well, we are a single-income household (mine). DH is retired with no pension, only a small amount of social security taken at 66 1/2. It looks like we might get a whopping $300 back from the Feds, if that. Our children are grown and we don't have enough deductions to itemize. When I see how much of my salary goes to taxes, I feel ill.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The government still owes me $900 from last year. We amended our return in April, and we are still waiting for our money. I'm not looking forward to this year after my raise. We are close to being at the point of not getting a refund and possibly having to pay.

It's taking that long?

Shoot we amended our taxes last year when the law was renewed for claiming PMI and while it took a while to get the actual physical check it certaintly wasn't that long.

Did you check your status over time?