Question

Slightly mostly a rant but any insight is helpful! Taxes. In filing our taxes it says we $3000 less was withheld this year than last. Yet we made no changes to our w4s for the withholdings. We are both Married. I have 0 allowances, he has 1. He has married but withhold at higher single rate. When I started my taxes while waiting for his W-2, it said I was getting back almost $4000. Then when I added his info in, it said we owe $2000. Last year we got $3000 back, both years filing married jointly since we got married in 2018. How is this possible where it didn't withhold enough this year but the same options were selected?!?!  

Answer 1

Same thing happened with us. I put in my w-2 and both kids. I was getting back over 6k. Put in my husbands info. And it dropped us to under 2k.  

Comments

@coercion because it figured your husband on your income alone including you and kids.  

Answer 2

I heard there were changes to tax brackets or something like that. Last year they were telling everyone to redo their w4s in my state to prevent this

Answer 3

The tax law changed for this year. Only benefits the rich.  

Comments

@sacha no it doesn’t. w4’s needed to be changed the beginning of last year.  

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@blowhard474 w4s needed to be updated because of the new tax law.  

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@sacha should check every year.  

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@blowhard474 yep

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@sacha Nope. We lose 45% of our income to taxes. and still owe. It only benefits the poor. I see people making less than 10k but have 5+ kids bragging about getting over 10k back  

Answer 4

When you start doing your taxes for both of you and you only have your income put in, it’s going to show that you’re going to get a higher refund because it thinks that your income is supporting the whole family. therefore it considers the tax breaks that you would receive being a single income family. when you then turn around and add in your husbands info, that increases your total income therefore it eliminates the tax breaks that you would’ve received because now it shows you in a different tax bracket now that it sees your actual total income together.  

Comments

@glans Catherine exactly! The more income you have, the more taxes you have to pay.  

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@nevil yeah I have seen many posts of people getting excited about what their return is currently showing and how much more it will be once their spouses W-2 is added but they don’t realize that the return will likely actually go down once the second W-2 is added

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I expected it to go down once I enter his. It did for 2018 taxes and cut our return in half. But. How did it change from 2018 to 2019 filings if the new tax changes came into play for 2018 filings and nothing in our situation changed?  

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@comedienne there were additional tax changes that started this year that hadn’t been in play last year

Answer 5

We’re all paying more taxes now because we used to be able to deduct personal exemptions for each member of your family (which reduced your taxable income) and this administration got rid of that, so we have more taxable income.  

Comments

Except filthy rich people who don’t need any breaks. They’re continuing to live their best life with huge tax breaks.  

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@nevil you still get standard deduction, 24, 400 married. Plus child credit 2000.  

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@blowhard474 of course, you just don’t get the extra personal exemption we used to get on top of that standard deduction (or itemized deduction)

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@mambo by $400  that doesn’t make up for the 4k PER person in your household (we’re a family of 5) and my paychecks did NOT get bigger. That was also bs

Answer 6

It sounds like most of those changes went into play in 2018. So I'm not sure how we are seeing a $5000 difference (from getting 3k to owing 2k) when we filed jointly for 2018, we bought our house back in 2017. We got married in 2018 but still filed jointly. We had the same withholdings. We didn't change tax brackets (the new brackets went into play 2018 not 2019 from what I'm reading) (also was at the same tax bracket when filing single) and both years was standard deductions. I will admit I don't understand taxes and deductions very well but with all these changes you all mention coming into play in 2018 filings, how would it change in the 2019 filings.  

Comments

@comedienne where do you get your taxes done? Or what do you use; hr block, TurboTax, etc? I use hr block and it gives me side to side comparison from the previous year.  

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@comedienne and also some of those deductions phased out meaning you probably still used them or a portion of them in 2018 but now can’t use them for 2019.  

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@nevil TurboTax for the last few years but for some reason even though I filed with TurboTax last year it doesn't have the record of it so trying to look into that.  

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@nevil and I admit I did notice something different. My HSA contribution went from $2500 to $0 cause open enrollment was during my wedding and it defaults to $0, not your choice from the year before

Answer 7

We got 3500 back last year. This year it says I owe $81.  

Answer 8

Tax rules changed

Answer 9

We owed $7000 last year after never, ever paying before! Made adjustments, but still paying $1000! I just want to come out even!  

Answer 10

I’m getting back almost $800 less than last year and the prior year I got back almost $2000 less, the constant tax laws changing continue to decrease my return. Sucks!  

Answer 11

I've seen lots of people suggest the IRS calculator but. it said I was getting a refund this year for 2019 of 12k. And it says if I stay as such now, we will get a refund of 18k next year. I'm going with, that's a lie.  Does it not work for fluctuating incomes (my husband is on commission)?  

Comments

@comedienne ngl I also don’t believe that because I was looking into decreasing my withholdings to reduce our refund next year and it was telling me if I wanted a smaller refund I needed to withhold more and I was like how does this make sense

Answer 12

@comedienne, I run this tax calculator at the end of every month and input the information I have from our last pay stub. My husband gets paid every week (and his pay fluctuates from week to week) and I get paid once a month (salary) so I always check the calculator when my check comes in and then put in our year-to-date information. This way I know if we are currently on track. I just have a spreadsheet that I keep track of everything and it the calculator says we should be withholding more, I try to have some extra taken out of my check.  

Comments

@forelock we both get paid biweekly but his HR system is a joke so it requires additional calculation to try to get the right info off his paystub and I ain't got time for that every two weeks while I'm in school and working haha I find it hard that it would fluctuate from a 18k refund one week to an owing situation the next week, rather more just cutting down that refund amount. Do you track what tax bracket he was in for each week to know if the % changed?  

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@comedienne, no. I just input what his year-to-date taxes are that have been withheld and what his year-to-date total earnings are. We have never gotten back a huge refund but I knew I didn't want to be caught off guard owing with the new tax changes.  

Answer 13

Not sure if the changes they made to the W-4 form has anything to do with it. I think the new form went into effect sometime last year.  

Answer 14

Did you pay the same amount into federal taxes in 2019 and 2018? Total withholdings for both years identical?  

Comments

@michaelemichaelina my withholdings on my w4 were the same. But that did not translate on the govt side as withholding the same amount. Turns out it was 22. 4% of my gross in 2018, but only 19% of gross in 2019 even though both years were married and 0

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@comedienne I’m not sure why the govt messes with our money so much but it sounds like you brought home more each paycheck. Red flag.  

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@michaelemichaelina only minimal which I attributed to my raise in base pay. So it was not evident that it was the taxes lower too not just the base pay raise.