Anyone nervous to do their taxes?

I don't think the big tax cut saved us anything either. You have to be a very specific tax payer, imo, and I admit I could be wrong, to see a benefit from the tax cut. Our itemized taxes were about the same as the standard deduction so for us, that's a wash. My dh works for a non-profit so he never had a change in deduction or pay after the tax cut was effective. We are getting back about the same as we always do. Which is fine with me...but all the hype of the tax cut...fell short here for sure.
Isn’t your second oldest 16? Meaning for 2019 you lose the $2000 credit on her? That’s what I find so irritating. Why on earth are they ending the credit at 16? Anyway—I’m just generally irritated because it’s not really simpler and it didn’t help me at all and will start costing me more next year when dd turns 17. And I’m solidly middle class!
 
Isn’t your second oldest 16? Meaning for 2019 you lose the $2000 credit on her? That’s what I find so irritating. Why on earth are they ending the credit at 16? Anyway—I’m just generally irritated because it’s not really simpler and it didn’t help me at all and will start costing me more next year when dd turns 17. And I’m solidly middle class!
The child tax credit has always been UNDER 17 for many years. Keep in mind the tax reform act, doubled the child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000 each.::yes::
 


Isn’t your second oldest 16? Meaning for 2019 you lose the $2000 credit on her? That’s what I find so irritating. Why on earth are they ending the credit at 16? Anyway—I’m just generally irritated because it’s not really simpler and it didn’t help me at all and will start costing me more next year when dd turns 17. And I’m solidly middle class!
It’s like they think after 16, these kids are somehow less expensive. IME, that’s when the expenses are really getting going. DD16 is far more expensive now than she was two years ago and that isn’t about to change lol.
 
My dh works for a non-profit so he never had a change in deduction or pay after the tax cut was effective.

When you say 'in deduction or pay' do you mean withholding? DH and I both work for non-profits and our employers adjusted our withholding off the new tables without us having to take any action in February of last year. I'm just curious why you mention non-profit, as if it works differently than for-profit employees. No snark intended at all, just a sincere question.

I'm also in the boat of having my oldest turn 17 in 2019. It was great while it lasted my dear little former tax deduction.... 8-)
 


Another thing that irritates me is the "big raise" in the standard deduction that was so widely talked about as being a great thing. I think this may have been touched on earlier, but just didn't sink in with me until I did our taxes. That standard deduction was only raised for married with no children! If you have kids then your deduction went down. Possibly also raised for single people, it has been forever since I was single, so haven't looked at those rates. But in the past you also got the exemptions if you made $156k or less, which to me is the definition of middle class. Which is who this tax cut was touted for. So you got the $12,700 standard deduction PLUS the $4050 x number of people. So a married couple with no kids their deduction would be $20,800. congrats, your standard deduction went up. If you have one kid, then your deduction would have been $24,850 - congrats your deduction went DOWN. The more kids you had the bigger loser you are. Three kids here, so feel like a big loser on that standard deduction. Congratulations everyone's taxable income went up. Then they "cut" the tax rate so I would guess for most people it was a wash.
 
When you say 'in deduction or pay' do you mean withholding? DH and I both work for non-profits and our employers adjusted our withholding off the new tables without us having to take any action in February of last year. I'm just curious why you mention non-profit, as if it works differently than for-profit employees. No snark intended at all, just a sincere question.

I'm also in the boat of having my oldest turn 17 in 2019. It was great while it lasted my dear little former tax deduction.... 8-)
So, my dh’s check is the same every month. It never changed at all after the tax changes. Since it was big news at the time how most would be seeing more money in their checks and many large companies were giving one time bonuses to their employees, I (possibly incorrectly) assumed my dh saw no change since he works for a nonprofit. They are exempt from some taxes so I figured the tax changes were not ones they have to pay. I kept asking my dh to ask someone at work but he’s super busy and there really isn’t a lot there in terms of a ‘HR’ dept lol. I even tried to research it some but all I could really find was how there would probably be less charitable giving due to the changes, and that’s been true for my dh’s workplace for sure.
 
Another thing that irritates me is the "big raise" in the standard deduction that was so widely talked about as being a great thing. I think this may have been touched on earlier, but just didn't sink in with me until I did our taxes. That standard deduction was only raised for married with no children! If you have kids then your deduction went down. Possibly also raised for single people, it has been forever since I was single, so haven't looked at those rates. But in the past you also got the exemptions if you made $156k or less, which to me is the definition of middle class. Which is who this tax cut was touted for. So you got the $12,700 standard deduction PLUS the $4050 x number of people. So a married couple with no kids their deduction would be $20,800. congrats, your standard deduction went up. If you have one kid, then your deduction would have been $24,850 - congrats your deduction went DOWN. The more kids you had the bigger loser you are. Three kids here, so feel like a big loser on that standard deduction. Congratulations everyone's taxable income went up. Then they "cut" the tax rate so I would guess for most people it was a wash.

We had phased out of the child tax credit, though. So with 3 kids, we did better because of getting that back.
 
Another thing that irritates me is the "big raise" in the standard deduction that was so widely talked about as being a great thing. I think this may have been touched on earlier, but just didn't sink in with me until I did our taxes. That standard deduction was only raised for married with no children! If you have kids then your deduction went down. Possibly also raised for single people, it has been forever since I was single, so haven't looked at those rates. But in the past you also got the exemptions if you made $156k or less, which to me is the definition of middle class. Which is who this tax cut was touted for. So you got the $12,700 standard deduction PLUS the $4050 x number of people. So a married couple with no kids their deduction would be $20,800. congrats, your standard deduction went up. If you have one kid, then your deduction would have been $24,850 - congrats your deduction went DOWN. The more kids you had the bigger loser you are. Three kids here, so feel like a big loser on that standard deduction. Congratulations everyone's taxable income went up. Then they "cut" the tax rate so I would guess for most people it was a wash.

It's the reason the child tax credit was doubled...$1K credit is equal to the $4050 exemption...so, the idea was everyone should see about a 3% decrease in their taxes (but not 10-20%)...for ease, 3% on $76K taxable (which would be a $100K salary with the standard deduction) would be $2280 total savings. So, 3% isn't an enormous number...unless we ever talk about other types of decreases at the governmental level:)...

And the decrease would not be universal...those without kids or large house payments and those in low taxes states would get more than those with the reverse. It is probably hugely beneficial to the 65+ population, who tend to live in lower cost housing, have no kids, and have moved to the low cost states (hello Florida)...they do tend to be the highest % voting population, so it's no surprise they probably got the biggest benefit (I know my mom made out like a bandit)...
 
So I did my mom's taxes for her. She's single and earns a small income. Anyhow, her income went up $519 from 2017 to 2018, but her taxes went down by $105, but her refund went down $83. And she has been on FB posting about how her refund went down. :sad2:

So this year, meaning 2018,her federal taxes were 3.7% plus she had to pay back $300 for the medical insurance subsidies she gets for the healthcare exchange
Last year, meaning 2017, her federal taxes were 4.4% plus she had to pay back $300 for the medical insurance subsidies she gets for the healthcare exchange
 
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It's the reason the child tax credit was doubled...$1K credit is equal to the $4050 exemption...so, the idea was everyone should see about a 3% decrease in their taxes (but not 10-20%)...for ease, 3% on $76K taxable (which would be a $100K salary with the standard deduction) would be $2280 total savings. So, 3% isn't an enormous number...unless we ever talk about other types of decreases at the governmental level:)...

And the decrease would not be universal...those without kids or large house payments and those in low taxes states would get more than those with the reverse. It is probably hugely beneficial to the 65+ population, who tend to live in lower cost housing, have no kids, and have moved to the low cost states (hello Florida)...they do tend to be the highest % voting population, so it's no surprise they probably got the biggest benefit (I know my mom made out like a bandit)...
I think the biggest benefit went to corporations. I’m okay with that assuming it helps economic growth but who know.
 
I think the biggest benefit went to corporations. I’m okay with that assuming it helps economic growth but who know.

True, too...but we were talking individuals...it has seemed to slow the movement of corporations and jobs overseas and even spurred some direct US job growth (whether the tax cuts or deregulation is the bigger contributor, who knows), so in the overall sense, it seems to be a winner, even if not the expected direct winner to most people's individual pockets...

I expect when I do taxes next weekend to break pretty close to even, since my withholding already reflected the 3% tax decrease - it made for a better year with higher income, but I know my normal "book a vacation" refund money is now gonna have to be saved for 12 months vs windfalling on one day, since I expect not to receive one this year:)...
 
It's the reason the child tax credit was doubled...$1K credit is equal to the $4050 exemption...so, the idea was everyone should see about a 3% decrease in their taxes (but not 10-20%)...for ease, 3% on $76K taxable (which would be a $100K salary with the standard deduction) would be $2280 total savings. So, 3% isn't an enormous number...unless we ever talk about other types of decreases at the governmental level:)...

And the decrease would not be universal...those without kids or large house payments and those in low taxes states would get more than those with the reverse. It is probably hugely beneficial to the 65+ population, who tend to live in lower cost housing, have no kids, and have moved to the low cost states (hello Florida)...they do tend to be the highest % voting population, so it's no surprise they probably got the biggest benefit (I know my mom made out like a bandit)...

Assuming same income and same ages of kids, mine would have decreased 2.3%. We have not itemized in years. We try to make our withholdings about equal to our tax before any credits, because DH believes those can be taken away any time, plus as the kids age, they really are taken away. When they lowered his withholdings last year he went in and raised them back up so we didn't see any difference in pay. And we were about $2000 short of hitting the straight tax before credits. We have 1 in high school and 2 in college so we did pretty good with the college credits and the increased child deduction but I have one of those pesky 17 yr olds this year so will see $1500 less next year. I have not done our state taxes yet, so not sure how those will fair.
 
We made quite a bit more this year so in order to compare how the tax cut really affected us I put in the exact income from last year. There was only a $78 difference. So the big tax cut would have saved us $78, whoopee! That was the tax before the credit, so it would have saved us the additional $2000 from the kids tax credit increasing, but I really don't see this as a big tax cut they made it out to be.

As it was explained at the time some would pay more, some would pay less, some would stay about the same. We got a couple hundred less back in a return but also PAID less taxes over the course of the year because the tax cut meant more in our paychecks. The fact is more people are better off and more people are working than there were 2 years ago. Hopefully that continues.
 
When you say 'in deduction or pay' do you mean withholding? DH and I both work for non-profits and our employers adjusted our withholding off the new tables without us having to take any action in February of last year. I'm just curious why you mention non-profit, as if it works differently than for-profit employees. No snark intended at all, just a sincere question.

I'm also in the boat of having my oldest turn 17 in 2019. It was great while it lasted my dear little former tax deduction.... 8-)
New credit for other dependents 17 and older that didnt exist till this year, $500 that you can take if they are a college student and under 24 OR if 19 and over if they are not a college student if they don’t make more than 4,150. Better than nothing!:cool1:
 
True, too...but we were talking individuals...it has seemed to slow the movement of corporations and jobs overseas and even spurred some direct US job growth (whether the tax cuts or deregulation is the bigger contributor, who knows), so in the overall sense, it seems to be a winner, even if not the expected direct winner to most people's individual pockets...

I expect when I do taxes next weekend to break pretty close to even, since my withholding already reflected the 3% tax decrease - it made for a better year with higher income, but I know my normal "book a vacation" refund money is now gonna have to be saved for 12 months vs windfalling on one day, since I expect not to receive one this year:)...

I was watching the news a day or two ago, and the refunds were a big story. They highlighted one woman who was used to getting back $900 but now owed $28. They made no mention of if her taxes actually increased...just that her refund decreased. Then the advice was to increase withholding. Now, I feel for this woman as she counted on the $900 for things like new tires for her car, etc; however, it seemed to me like owing $28 is the tax scenario that is desirable in general. She should not increase her withholding, she should just have $75 a month go directly from her paycheck into a savings account so she can get that $900 she needs.
 

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