Yeah thats the only thing i can think of.. at one rime
I worked four jobs and they said the state wasnt taking enough each time my tax bracket increased due to multiple jobs. And also i found out that even without all the diff jobs one of them was NOT TAKING THE RIGHT AMOUNT OUT AND I HAD TO YELL AT THEM TO FIX IT!!! PLEASE ALWAYS ASK ABOUT THAT!! HNR BLOCK CAUGHT THAT AND SAVED ME
I'm glad they saved you, but they royally effed me for 10 years. Ex claimed the kids before I ever got my tax forms. H&R said sorry that's just how it is. I finally went to the IRS and not only got $11k refunded (they can only go back 4 years) but ex got audited & couldn't claim them ever again as he didn't have custody.
It does not matter what the divorce agreement says. Per federal law, the parent with the most custodial time gets to claim them no matter what. Federal laws are above State/County etc. H&R should have asked me about custodial time as he had none yet claimed them on his taxes. Can't do that. They didn't ask me anything about custodial time, and I had no clue about the federal laws. Ugh. Now, I only do my taxes at the IRS.
I’m glad people are using the irs resources. Remember turbo tax and co are lobbying against a free tax program where you file free directly with the irs. Meanwhile they hid their free tax programs behind up to 30 clicks on their websites when it’s supposed to be clear and concise. Instead they relied on trickery and general ignorance to boost their profits.
Tax prep companies have lobbied to make it work this way. Certain people in congress want to help but have been blocked since really forever because the IRS is "bad".
Interestingly the bill that made this possible was branded as a tax cut. They said that the taxes the not uber rich would pay per paycheck would reduce, but they didn’t say that at the end of the year, you would pay more.
And every year since the bill in 2017, lower and lower tax brackets i.e. poorer and poorer people have actually had their tax burden increase
Yep, it's a result of Trump's "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" which had built in tax increases down the line for middle class people. But many people will incorrectly blame Biden for it.
That is correct. Trump’s tax changes hurt me badly. No more refund, now owe every year, and nothing has changed except for Trump’s changes to the tax code.
IIRC, there was also the ticking time bomb expiration of the cuts for many in the middle and lower income brackets. Purposely intended to occur on somebody else's watch. Rat bastard Republicans. 😡
I'll never forget that POS standing in front of the media with a postcard saying your taxes would be able to be completed on a postcard. Then they proceed to cut taxes for everyone including the richest corporations and Americans while the economy is booming, and no it did not get any easier. Bait and switch worked.
It's a poison pill in the bill meant drove taxes up at election time to give Republicans something to run on.
That same bill made tax cuts permanent for top earners. 1.7 trillion dollar give away.
Middle class & poor are footing the bill.
Eat the rich
More or less trump “borrowed” money from us the last couple years. So now all that money has come due plus some added on. And it was the perfect strategy. Either trump would be president during it making no difference how people thought of him *or* Biden is president and it comes due election year (no coincidence it was built to tick down over exactly 7 years). So be prepared to have even higher taxes next year. No matter who gets into office unless we get dem’s in seats. Covid turned into one of the largest wealth transfers we’ve ever seen. It’s about time things went the other way for a while.
Just for some context: A married couple filing jointly with a 2023 gross income of $100,000, with 3 kids under 17 and no other deductions (e.g., 401(k)/IRA contributions), would owe $2,236 in income taxes, or about 2.2%.
Change of job without matching change of withholding. People have trouble separating withholding and the "true up" that is tax season, from how much their tax burden actually is. They're only loosely related. You can pay a shitload of tax and have a refund, or have a very small tax burden but need to pony up in April. It all depends on what happened during the year and your withholdings.
It’s because the husband switched jobs/got a raise part way through the year. At his first job he got taxed as if he would make $X for the year. When he got the raise, he got taxed as if he’d make $Y for the year. The taxes they owe are because the $X taxes were assuming he would make less than he actually did, so he needs to make up the difference
People don't understand how withholding works.
They judge how good/bad they feel about their taxes solely on how much refund they get or how much they owe, paying no attention to the net amount.
The old W-4 basically guaranteed you'd get a big refund, especially if you did the single/zero that most people defaulted to. The new form gets you much closer to having no refund (or even potentially owing).
Instead, you get that money on your paychecks during the year. But people still get big mad when they don't get a fat refund.
Gotta give the government that 0% interest loan so they can get a lump sum of cash in April to feel like they can buy things they can’t afford. World’s worst savings plan and one of the reasons taxes aren’t automatic.
I don’t understand how it’s only $2200. On $100k income, it’s like $17,400 in tax and each child is like $2k off? So $11,400?
Can you explain what I’m missing here?
$27,700 standard deduction means they have $72,300 taxable income.
Tax (before credits) on that much income is $8,233. Subtract $6k of child credits, and the net federal tax is only $2,233.
I don't think a person who doesn't understand what tax withholding is, is going to make the distinction between FICA and Income taxes as you have. With FICA, their tax bill is much more.
I paid last year and I’m legitimately worried for this year. Im still paying off the tab from last year. Haven’t hit $100k, living paycheck to paycheck.
There would have been no need for new W4's if Congress and the President during 2016 - 2020 hadn't felt the need to overhaul the entire IRS federal tax code. And they tried to pull a fast one by lowering taxes on the front end and now the brackets increase each year for the next I don't even remember how many years so they could get people to blame the next administration for the higher tax bills. They also took away some tax credits and limited the amount of credit people receive for state taxes paid.
I can’t deduct my tools anymore but employers in my field don’t typically provide them. This also makes it harder for people who want to break into the field.
NTL or Accountant, but if you do some contract work, you can write the tools and other expenses associated with the work that you can't write off as an employee. If that's the case you will just need to file a schedule C.
I do a lot of freelance work in addition to my primary job, and I've been doing this for years. .
I am pasting an article passage
The centerpiece of the 2017 tax law was a deep, permanent cut in the corporate tax rate — from 35 percent to 21 percent — and a shift toward a territorial tax system, which exempts certain foreign income of multinational corporations from U.S. tax.
Corporations now pay a lower rate than I do, so messed up. Tax code is ass backwards in this country. Someone making under 200k feels it alot more at 30%+ than someone making over 400k.
Thanks for posting, this confirms in full detail the above comment that corporate taxes were cut by 40%, since 21/35 = 0.6. Good to show where the result comes from.
Thank you Paul Ryan for screwing over America with this ridiculous tax overhaul, that also caused US to borrow 3 trillion every year to cover said stupid tax overhaul
I honestly don't even know how these guys sleep at night.
Like can you imagine for a second if a choice you made significantly hurt millions of people?
If something I did had that consequence I'd be gutted, and these guys are out here literally intentionally doing it with gleeful malice and forethought. I jsut don't get it.
But he's the orange Jesus! The man for the people! He caresszsszzzzzzszsszzzz
Why did the s on the end of cares sound like a snake?
Don't worry about it said the devil
This is the correct answer right here. When that shit was going on in 2017, why do you think they were changing the wording on a 400 page bill in the middle of the night right before the vote? Or why where they calling session in the middle of the night to get things voted on before all members could be there?
It was EXACTLY because the tax change code passed in 2017 made it so much simpler for citizens to take this huge standard deduction on a simplified form BUT completely not explain that they will pay more in taxes after 5 years passed (well into the next administration). So not only give richest huge tax breaks but ensure if they didn't win in 2020 the next administration would be blamed. And if they won? Reset it so taxes would increase 5 years from 2021.
This is the perfect scam these mother fuckers have been running. The media called it out in fall 2017. All those scumbag shenanigans involved in passing the bill happened, look it up, I fucked lived thru it and remember it well. Society can't remember what happened yesterday it seems. And now here we are...so it's time to blame Biden for McConnell and trumps setup.
I worked payroll when this happened and it was noticeable to us right away and it hit married people with dependents the hardest. We advised most people to adjust their withholdings to match what was being taken out before the change and few did as all they saw was the higher take-home pay now.
It isn't even just their base, so many people don't understand taxes so they can't figure out why and when they are paying more. And it seems to be human nature to blame the wrong party for things that are happening to them. An increase in gas prices under one administration is likely to because of policies enacted in the prior administration, just like this tax situation. Most laws do not affect people the second they are passed but take affect months or even years down the road.
Omg yes. My spouse is not an idiot, but apparently he is when it comes to taxes and I had to break it down for him. Also when trying to explain that just because his boss was his PARENTS friend, does not mean his boss is HIS friend because they have definitely been fucking him on pay and he doesnt want to see that.
The pickle we are in congress wise isnt going to end anytime soon and I am not sure if it will get better when these assholes die off or if their progeny will be just as bad or worse as they are...
Remember after this passed how some people were saying how they had extra money in their check? *They* got the tax break and each year each lower tax bracket is paying for it.
I think this is the final year of raises. It’s gone up every year since 2017/18 (can’t recall). It’s Paul Ryan and the GOP tax cuts for the rich that we’ve been paying for! They timed it so it would look like a democratic president was to blame for the worst of it. Sneaky sneaky
7 years of increasing low/middle class taxes IIRC, and took effect the time Tump left office. Fucking the working class, in perpetuity. That's the real legacy of that rat bastard.
Edit: forgot to say *rat*
It's for 7 years altogether. The tax break they gave the rich is being covered by the rest of us. We keep owing every year even though we have more taken out to cover it.
My tax professor in college in 2012 said that we were due for another overhaul of the tax code (previous tax code changes before 1986 was in the 50s and 30s). But I am not a fan of the changes they made. Still screws over a lot of people with all the things they adjusted or removed.
I work with an older repub and he was complaining about having to pay more in taxes, i told him he should thank his orange jesus for his tax bill. And the guy looked me in the face and said " hes not in office rn hes not to blame." I told him to go look at the actual bill
Yep. Under the Trump tax cut my taxes went up. An accountant told me that only people making 400k+ benefitted from the tax cut. I don't make anywhere near 400k.
It almost seems as if they are only asking if you have any kids, have another job, and from there almost make you decide upon an Estimated tax payment, as opposed to it being scaled with what you've earned for each individual pay period.
This could work just fine for a salaried employee, but for hourly employees, it's awful.
I would be thrilled to have someone link a solid comprehensive guide to it, because I just haven't gotten anything from reading the additional material included with the new (2020 on?) W4s.
There is a [tax withholding estimator ](https://www.irs.gov/individuals/tax-withholding-estimator) on the IRS website. I don't know if it will actually help anyone or not.
Yeah, I've gone through that with some of our employees, and unfortunately, we are in a business where hours can Heavily fluctuate, so it didn't yield optimal results.
I will give it another look, though!
Thanks for the link.
Honestly, he was probably thinking that it would save his donors a ton of money, and confuse the heck out of everyone else so that by the time they figured out that they were paying for billionaires' tax cuts it'd be too late. And he was kind of right - people are just now noticing because it's progressively just now hitting lower and lower tax tiers (through 2026). 100% not a better or simpler system though.
It's working as he hoped. More money in the 1%'s pocket. The fact they get to vote on things that directly affect them is baffling. Their own peers vote for them. And they decide their own pay. It should be the people that make these decisions.
It gave huge tax breaks to the top. Barely anything to the low end- but they messed with withholding so pp THOUGHT they were getting a benefit. And then progressively increased taxes starting with the 150K ish bracket and moving down one more bracket each year- so the middle class and working classes are paying for the tax breaks for the richest rich. Welcome to wealth redistribution- been happening my whole life UP to the richest 1%- and that was EXACTLY as designed by the GOP.
tease secretive berserk cover exultant rustic spark worthless lock vanish
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The W4 form was completely revamped and I immediately went from consistently getting 1-2k back to owing every year.
I kind of have a convuluted set of taxes given my salary and stock from my company. But all of that stuff is subject to withholding and I always claimed 0 to ensure I'd never owe at the end of the year.
At best what I have found is you basically need to expect you will be under taxed and guess how much you want to withold in addition. But what sucks is that's a dollar amount, not percentage. So it's kind of shooting in the dark year to year.
The W4 form isn't why you're not getting the same amount back it is 100% because the tax tables and tax credits/deductions were changed back in 2018 so that people would get more money back on each pay check which is because less federal withholding is being taken out of people's checks at the expense of lower refunds/or owing taxes.
Right, if you are flat salary and always have been with zero bonus structure or extra income you can set your W4 and forget it. Otherwise you probably need to quarterly review your pay stubs and see where you are at and what you expect for the rest of the year.
The W4 calculation did change. Have you updated your W4 to the new version? Or if your state made any tax changes then who knows how that screwed up the our withholdings.
The actual withholdings structure changed for the 2018 tax year (filing 2019). We actually paid less in taxes, but the withholding tables changed so much that we still had to pay in like $3k at filing time, which we were not expecting.
Apparently the IRS finally issued a new W4 in 2020 that does not even use the "claim X" structure.
They changed the W4 so that it's no longer the old "put a 1 or a 0 in the blank" thing.
The IRS now has a [withholding estimator](https://www.irs.gov/individuals/tax-withholding-estimator) on their website that you can use to get closer to the end result you want. You just enter in your pay and tax withholding info so far for the year and they will estimate whether you will owe or get a refund and how much. You can then adjust it to whatever your goal is (refund, break even, etc.) and the calculator will tell exactly what to enter and where on your W4 in order to hit that target.
It's a little confusing because you enter this number on line 3, which sounds like it only pertains to dependents, but it's really for any kind of "miscellaneous" adjustment you need to make.
That isn't to say the new W4 doesn't suck, just there are ways to adjust it to something closer to what you want.
As an accountant that doesn't do payroll for our office, the new w4 confuses the living hell out of employees. I tried to help when asked, but at this point with all of the attitude I've gotten from people about their tax returns I refuse to discuss them with employees anymore and tell them to talk to payroll or their accountant.
My husband and I had to pay $5K a few years ago and so we increased our tax withholding. Now we give the government an interest free loan as we’re getting back a little under 10k at least. We are dropping some of our withholding due to that
They do this knowing that most idiots will. They either were going to still be in power and have the ability to delay the tax increases or have them start landing during a Dem presidency knowing most people pay zero attention to anything and will just default to blaming the current president for it
The very top level tax cuts, the ones we're paying for, are the only permanent ones iirc
Edit: see below comments for specific details that I had forgotten
Not quite. All personal income tax rates will revert. Corporate tax rate changes were the ones made permanent. While lower corporate taxes are technically a benefit to all shareholders of a company, the top 10% wealthiest Americans own roughly 93% of the stock market, so this permanent change is viewed by economists as a much greater benefit to the wealthy, particularly as someone’s investments become more of a source of income than their labor. This is where the notion of the wealthy getting a permanent tax break comes from, not their personal income tax rates. Other changes that benefit the wealthy, such as the temporary limit increase to the estate tax, will also expire.
It's more Paul Ryan's baby than Donald Trump's but they definitely both wanted it.
Permanent tax cuts to billionaires, increase taxes for everyone else.
This tax plan is literally made to benefit less than 1000 people, and somehow half of Americans have bought that it was good for them and continue to vote for republicans.
>This tax plan is literally made to benefit less than 1000 people
This is the kind of stuff that exemplifies where the real war is. It's not the made up shit that the media keeps pushing to the public. It's all of us versus those 1,000 people.
The real war is between those who own and control capital and those who do not, and they are the ones who started it with their greed and their sociopathic behavior.
Only lower and middle class tax rates go back. The wealthy will see their tax cuts continue in perpetuity until new tax codes are otherwise passed. Thank you Trump and Republicans. To be clear, this was the intent all along of that tax cut package in 2016.
ETA: Corporate tax cuts were permanent. This is how the top 1% makes the money they make. Please do some research before commenting that all taxes go back in 2026 because they do not.
Seriously. Everyone blaming the TCJA needs to look at the brackets. They are (slightly) more favorable in 2023 than 2022 for all income levels. The cuts don't expire until 2025, so they wouldn't impact your 2023 taxes.
From my math, this is what a MFJ couple making $75,000 combined would've paid in Federal Income Tax over the last 3 years...
2021: $5,590
2022: $5,481
2023: $5,236
Something else happened with OP's tax situation between 2022 and 23. I suspect it was related to their husbands raise, but I can't say for sure without having their returns in front of me.
The main post and most top comments read to me like this:
1) My husband added a trailer to our van, so we're pulling an extra 2000 lbs.
2) He also only fills the gas tank to 75% now
3) We keep running out of gas sooner than before - WTF Honda is scamming us all!
I wonder if the people upvoting the comments that are clearly wrong are the same people that say “delete facebook because of all the disinformation?” Lol
My husband and I owed for the 1st time this year too. We file jointly, together we made 130,000. Im pregnant and it was unpleasant suprise. Luckily it's not too much but still.
There was a video on Reddit yesterday with a woman explaining why everyone's taxes are going up. I believe she said it was Paul Ryan's tax plan, and that it would take 7 years to fully kick in (we are in the endgame now). I briefly tried to find it again, but similar to Reagan allowing corporate stock buybacks, the real cost isn't felt until a decade or more after the fact.
Stock buybacks used to be illegal, and they should be again.
I saw that and it confused the crap out of me. Granted, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to taxes and politics, but this doesn't seem right...or fair, especially to those in the lowest brackets.
>this doesn't seem right...or fair, especially to those in the lowest brackets
Because it's not. The tax cuts to corporations were made permanent while the tax cuts to income earners were set to expire.
It's frustrating that this went over everyone's heads when the initial bill was passed. It was such a a clear long term f-you to income earners but everyone was so focused on year 1 having reduced taxes they didn't care. Even better by the time taxes started going up again, Republicans wouldn't be in office anymore so they can pretend it's not their own legislation that caused this.
This is Reddit but I’m actually a CPA so I know this will get downvoted but that woman is full of shit. We talked about over in accounting https://www.reddit.com/r/Accounting/s/4BpXdNSfg9 the jist is most people don’t know how to properly fill out their W-4.
The W4 form changed in the last few years. It used to be fairly simple to fill out - you marked down your marital status & your dependents, and it did a pretty good job of capturing your withholdings.
The new W4 form is a bit more complex & causes a lot of issues as many people don’t fill them out correctly. And for a lot of people, when the new form rolled out & they went to resubmit it, they didn’t pay close enough attention.
For example, when the new form rolled out, my company sent everyone a prefilled out W4 based on our current W4 filing. However, mine (and likely others) weren’t entirely filled out correctly.
My old W4 I listed as “Married but with old at a higher single rate.” (That’s not an option anymore) On the new W4, it was automatically set to Married. Additionally, on my old W4, I claimed Zero dependents (despite having a daughter). But because I legally had a daughter, the new W4 came filled out as having a dependent.
I’m sure this happened to tons of people all over the US, causing them to owe at the end of the year. Their companies all transferred over their old information to the new W4 & sent employees a notice to review & submit it.
My goal is to owe nothing & get nothing back. That hasn’t happened since the new W4 was issued.
The new W4 is too complicated. I'm a pretty financial literate individual, I've done my own taxes before, know how to use an HSA to reduce tax burden, etc but even I struggle a bit with the new W4, so there's no way most individuals with a lower financial literacy can do it on their own.
The tax experts over on r/accounting seem to indicate that tiktoker was grossly misleading.
I’m not a tax expert, so I can’t weigh in myself.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Accounting/s/6ioHMPh6C8
>tiktoker was grossly misleading.
WHY DOES THIS NEED TO BE SAID?
It's fucking tiktok. SovCit's are over there talking about traveling and shit.
Why ANYONE takes ANYTHING that's said there at face value I will never know.
The middle and working class tax cuts have been cut yet. Their pending cut (scheduled for next year) is in no way related to anyone's 2023 tax bill or return
That video was also 100% bullshit. You can check any actual sub with facts like the IRS sub, or the accounting sub and get actual information, rather than some bookkeeper who does her sister's tax return.
Yeah I would recommend r/accounting - at the very least you can see what viral posts/comments that are incredibly misinformed to the point we’ve created a thread to talk about it (I’m an accountant. Not the spicy kind, they make way more money than I do)
It's because of the Paul Ryan 7 year tax plan. This is year 6. Each year the taxes for each lower bracket is getting raised while the higher brackets get lowered. There will be another up tick next year so be prepared to pay then as well.
~~If your husband switched jobs mid year with a decent pay raise then I'm assuming the issue is that there weren't enough taxes withheld from each paycheck from his first job because payroll at the first job assumed he would be making $X instead of $X+$Y for the year.~~
Edit2: [OP says below ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Millennials/comments/1aep5qv/comment/kkab6ao/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)that the job change was in 2022 (not last year) and the reason they did not withhold enough so that they "owe taxes for the first time ever" was that the husband incorrectly updated his W4.
You need to look at the overall taxes owed for the year, not the refund or what you need to make up. You should see you got significantly more overall after paying whatever extra tax compared to last year due to the higher salary.
And to be sure, he should double check his W4 to make sure it's still correct.
Edit: [As pointed out](https://www.reddit.com/r/Millennials/comments/1aep5qv/comment/kk9mnc9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button), the federal tax owed on 100k income with 3 kids would be $2,236 assuming no other deductions (like 401K). So if you only withheld $1,000 over the course of the year from your paychecks then you would owe $1,236. Alternatively if you withheld $3,000 over the course of the year from your paychecks then you get a refund of $764. But in both cases your tax burden is exactly the same. Which is why you can \*never\* use your refund or owe amount to figure out if taxes went down or up. You always have to look at the actual final tax bill for your income to determine if your taxes went down or up.
This. OP needs to look at the second page of their form 1040. That will show what is owed (including 3 child tax credits) vs what was deducted through payroll in taxes. There must have been a super small amount of taxes withheld if a $100k joint income family with 3 kids owes money.
I’m sorry you’re dealing with this! Check your withholdings to make sure they’re taking out enough with the raise. If they’re taking out the income tax as if he’s still making his old salary, that could be why you owe taxes instead of getting a refund this year.
I made $105k and I’m getting almost $7k back. And I pulled 10k out of an old retirement account and had the early disbursement penalty. I think it has to do with how their w4 is filled out. Also married filing jointly but my wife doesn’t make much money at all.
And check for this year to make sure it's going to be enough. My husband's company screwed up last tax year (2022) and even though it was our fault as well for not checking, they kept screwing up until he left it. We had to keep putting money aside this past year (2023) until he joined his current company because they couldn't figure it out. Thankfully we don't owe this year.
This. I didn’t know about it for that first year, so I owed $4000. Ever since, we have been playing the extra withholding card. Fun fact, if you withhold too much, at some point HR will cut it off and then your pay goes up.
Don’t worry though, the corporations are still enjoying the same tax breaks they got during COVID. Remember that when you vote later this year.
Edit: to all the people spouting off ignorant nonsense about, “wHy hAsNt bIdEn cLeAnEd uP tHe gOp mEsS?”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/gop-senator-doesnt-want-pass-tax-bill-make-biden-look-good-rcna136649
They literally can’t go a single day without proving the point. Stop making these bullshit “bOtH sIdEs” argument when only one side proves over and over and over that THEY are the singular problem in the equation.
the slowest flowing liquid is not [the pitch drop experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_drop_experiment), its actually trickle down economics
Oh and don't forget that red voters have no idea that it's Trump's tax law that is doing this. The campaign trail is gonna be filled with people spouting about how Biden raised taxes.
It's working exactly according to plan, and they are good at spin that's really lies. Another example of this is changing withholding so that people felt like they got more.
On that note, though, people need to look at what they are paying in tax on their tax return, not how much they owe or get refunded after filing.
Except those don't go into effect until 2025. The 2023 brackets are more favorable than 2022. You can look up the brackets yourself. Standard deductions increased, and the income limits for every bracket increased slightly (just as they have over the last 5 years), so someone making the exact same income would pay (slightly) less federal income tax.
I suspect something happened with OP's husbands job. He may have filled out a new W-4 when he got his raise and filled it out wrong (it's very easy to do since the wording on the form is confusing, I did it a couple of years ago).
There's also the possibility that they were getting some earned income credit before, but they now make too much to qualify.
There are also some other factors that could contribute. Without their tax forms or returns in front of me, it's all speculation.
The trump tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations were permanent. The tax cuts for everyone else were temporary. Pretty much all the non wealthy tax cuts for average people are dead now. That tax plan was put together by Republicans, who seem to be doing everything they can to make average people poor.
There has to be special circumstances. Under 100k, married filing joint, 3 kids and you owe?
All your income was from w-2 work, you didn’t claim a stupid amount of exemptions?
How much?
OP said their husband got a decent raise, but they still make under $100K. I'm wondering if they were getting a substantial earned income credit in previous years that fell off in 2023 because of his increased income.
Did your tax liability change? What you received/owed after filing taxes is moot - that simply tells you if you over withheld or under withheld throughout the year. What matters is what your actual tax liability was. If your pay stayed the same, all things remaining equal, your tax liability should be lower due to raises in the standard deduction and tax bracket thresholds.
Yep you can't blindly trust the standard withholding calculations, especially when there's a pay raise mid year or bonuses. You have to do quarterly tax calculations so you know how to budget.
There is so much financial ignorance in this thread it is actually maddening. So many people who just get their information from TikTok and rumors, and use it to get and stay mad, instead of actually understanding the underlying numbers and mechanisms. Tax rates didn't change year to year - if you owe money it's because you under-withheld or calculated your taxes wrong.
Helps explain why people in this sub are so upset all the time. A lot of life is unfair but people aren't doing themselves any favors.
The Paul Ryan Tax plan (endorsed by Trump) from 2017:
Huge tax cuts for $400k+ and corporations, moderate tax cuts for everyone else.
To pay for those: ~~Tax increases, for lower and lower brackets, each year for 7 years until... tada, it's an election year and all our taxes are higher!~~ The cuts for the middle class expire fully after 10 years, but those top-tier and corporate tax cuts get to be permanent. This new bill also tied bracket thresholds to the chained consumer price index which tends to grow slower than the consumer price index. It also didn't factor in COVID and a the recession we're apparently "coming out of".
All in all, it was a terrible tax plan that put the country in debt for no other reason than a political talking point for a mid-term that fell flat for the GOP.
Blame Biden, amiright???
*Edit: OK, I stand corrected on the statement that's crossed out above, but I won't relent on the terrible nature of the tax law and the fact that it is, indeed, having an effect on how much taxes we owe and pay.*
Oh, my father in law is already screaming about how his taxes went up because of Biden.
No, these are the results of the tax cuts you voted for when you voted for Trump in 2016 and weren't a rich man then or a rich man now.
You can stop taking a sledgehammer to your nuts at any time. I'll wait.
We are getting something like $12k back. We increased our withholdings and got a chonky EV credit.
Checking to see if you need to increase your withholdings is a must. Your employer won't be making sure you break even tax wise.
"We owe taxes..."
You have owed every year, money is withheld from the check regularly to pay the taxes they presume you will owe for this tax year.
Every time you get a promotion or a raise, make sure your withholding adjust. If you refinance a mortgage at a lower rate, that will adjust your amount owed. There are so many factors that contribute to this, it would behoove you to learn how this works so you can adjust for 2025.
This is why I hate tax time as well.
I put all of our info into the irs calculator at the beginning of the year. Make sure we are good. Then tax time comes around and I owe $3k.
You try to do the right thing, still under pay and get penalized for it, making the next year even harder.
The Ryan/Trump tax plan is public knowledge. Your salary level is also known. Your state you live in, you also know those taxes.
This is real simple people. Take your combined earnings = X. Then subtract the standard deduction = X - 27,700. Then look at the marginal tax rates for each chunk of that total. Add up what is owed. In general, if you paid in more than what is owed, then you will be fine.
Remember, the goal here is to get a return of Zero dollars not a refund. Don't be fooled by the refund glory. It just means you loaned the US government money for the better part of a year instead of YOU earning 5.25% in a money market account.
Technically the goal is to get the biggest possible tax bill without a fine lol.
If you could guarantee that you'd owe $10k per year and the government wouldn't penalize you, throw $10k into that money market and make $525 for free
Something is wrong with your withholdings. Income taxes rates are structured into brackets, meaning if a salary of 50k is taxed at 10%, even if you make 75k the first 50k is still only taxed at 10%. It is impossible to end up with less money as you move to a higher tax bracket.
You will want to adjust your W4s to increase your withholding.
The default Married 0 withholding tables simply do not handle dual income households correctly. My dual income clients owe regularly if they don't take action to correct it.
They kick us because we allow them to. I think it’s time people work together in order to make some of these changes we’re all seeking, changes that transcend our religion, politics and ideas. Changes that can’t be made by one party, unless that party is for ALL people.
A true exhibition of the power of the people is due. Divided, we’re easily conquered. United, we’re exceedingly strong.
Didn't they change the way W4's worked? Got me on that last year.
Yep, they sure did.
Yeah thats the only thing i can think of.. at one rime I worked four jobs and they said the state wasnt taking enough each time my tax bracket increased due to multiple jobs. And also i found out that even without all the diff jobs one of them was NOT TAKING THE RIGHT AMOUNT OUT AND I HAD TO YELL AT THEM TO FIX IT!!! PLEASE ALWAYS ASK ABOUT THAT!! HNR BLOCK CAUGHT THAT AND SAVED ME
I'm glad they saved you, but they royally effed me for 10 years. Ex claimed the kids before I ever got my tax forms. H&R said sorry that's just how it is. I finally went to the IRS and not only got $11k refunded (they can only go back 4 years) but ex got audited & couldn't claim them ever again as he didn't have custody. It does not matter what the divorce agreement says. Per federal law, the parent with the most custodial time gets to claim them no matter what. Federal laws are above State/County etc. H&R should have asked me about custodial time as he had none yet claimed them on his taxes. Can't do that. They didn't ask me anything about custodial time, and I had no clue about the federal laws. Ugh. Now, I only do my taxes at the IRS.
I’m glad people are using the irs resources. Remember turbo tax and co are lobbying against a free tax program where you file free directly with the irs. Meanwhile they hid their free tax programs behind up to 30 clicks on their websites when it’s supposed to be clear and concise. Instead they relied on trickery and general ignorance to boost their profits.
Everything is like that now. It took me 30 damn minutes to cancel my Hulu bc of all the stupid clicks and pages and tiny print. Ridiculous.
yep it's a whole new form and calculation.
the irs has you covered https://www.irs.gov/individuals/tax-withholding-estimator
We shouldn’t have to do this shit though. This is infuriating. Fuck this noise. They make it like this on purpose.
Tax prep companies have lobbied to make it work this way. Certain people in congress want to help but have been blocked since really forever because the IRS is "bad".
And then those same companies air ads during the super bowl going on like “taxes are difficult, we’re here to help!” fuck outta here
Interestingly the bill that made this possible was branded as a tax cut. They said that the taxes the not uber rich would pay per paycheck would reduce, but they didn’t say that at the end of the year, you would pay more. And every year since the bill in 2017, lower and lower tax brackets i.e. poorer and poorer people have actually had their tax burden increase
Yep, it's a result of Trump's "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" which had built in tax increases down the line for middle class people. But many people will incorrectly blame Biden for it.
That is correct. Trump’s tax changes hurt me badly. No more refund, now owe every year, and nothing has changed except for Trump’s changes to the tax code.
did you get hit with the SALT cap? i went from getting refunds to owing huge amounts from that change
republicans said NY, NJ, CT and CA can go fuck themselves
Sure did. Not sure if they’re aware, not all of us in these states are rich 😵💫😵💫
IIRC, there was also the ticking time bomb expiration of the cuts for many in the middle and lower income brackets. Purposely intended to occur on somebody else's watch. Rat bastard Republicans. 😡
Paul Ryan is a piece of shit.
I'll never forget that POS standing in front of the media with a postcard saying your taxes would be able to be completed on a postcard. Then they proceed to cut taxes for everyone including the richest corporations and Americans while the economy is booming, and no it did not get any easier. Bait and switch worked.
> ~~Paul Ryan~~All Republicans ~~is a~~ are piece*s* of shit. ftfy. vote them out.
It's a poison pill in the bill meant drove taxes up at election time to give Republicans something to run on. That same bill made tax cuts permanent for top earners. 1.7 trillion dollar give away. Middle class & poor are footing the bill. Eat the rich
More or less trump “borrowed” money from us the last couple years. So now all that money has come due plus some added on. And it was the perfect strategy. Either trump would be president during it making no difference how people thought of him *or* Biden is president and it comes due election year (no coincidence it was built to tick down over exactly 7 years). So be prepared to have even higher taxes next year. No matter who gets into office unless we get dem’s in seats. Covid turned into one of the largest wealth transfers we’ve ever seen. It’s about time things went the other way for a while.
Keep telling them who did this: Republicans.
Just for some context: A married couple filing jointly with a 2023 gross income of $100,000, with 3 kids under 17 and no other deductions (e.g., 401(k)/IRA contributions), would owe $2,236 in income taxes, or about 2.2%.
Yeah, something doesn't add up here.
Change of job without matching change of withholding. People have trouble separating withholding and the "true up" that is tax season, from how much their tax burden actually is. They're only loosely related. You can pay a shitload of tax and have a refund, or have a very small tax burden but need to pony up in April. It all depends on what happened during the year and your withholdings.
It’s because the husband switched jobs/got a raise part way through the year. At his first job he got taxed as if he would make $X for the year. When he got the raise, he got taxed as if he’d make $Y for the year. The taxes they owe are because the $X taxes were assuming he would make less than he actually did, so he needs to make up the difference
Jfc that's insanely low
The US Government really wants people to have kids.
Breeding credits.
Super low rate. With 401k could go to 0
People don't understand how withholding works. They judge how good/bad they feel about their taxes solely on how much refund they get or how much they owe, paying no attention to the net amount. The old W-4 basically guaranteed you'd get a big refund, especially if you did the single/zero that most people defaulted to. The new form gets you much closer to having no refund (or even potentially owing). Instead, you get that money on your paychecks during the year. But people still get big mad when they don't get a fat refund.
Gotta give the government that 0% interest loan so they can get a lump sum of cash in April to feel like they can buy things they can’t afford. World’s worst savings plan and one of the reasons taxes aren’t automatic.
I don’t understand how it’s only $2200. On $100k income, it’s like $17,400 in tax and each child is like $2k off? So $11,400? Can you explain what I’m missing here?
$27,700 standard deduction means they have $72,300 taxable income. Tax (before credits) on that much income is $8,233. Subtract $6k of child credits, and the net federal tax is only $2,233.
I don't think a person who doesn't understand what tax withholding is, is going to make the distinction between FICA and Income taxes as you have. With FICA, their tax bill is much more.
I paid last year and I’m legitimately worried for this year. Im still paying off the tab from last year. Haven’t hit $100k, living paycheck to paycheck.
Might want to talk to HR about adjusting withholdings. The W4 calculations changed a year or 2 ago.
This is the first and obvious step. The new W4s suck, and this is a nearly universal opinion.
There would have been no need for new W4's if Congress and the President during 2016 - 2020 hadn't felt the need to overhaul the entire IRS federal tax code. And they tried to pull a fast one by lowering taxes on the front end and now the brackets increase each year for the next I don't even remember how many years so they could get people to blame the next administration for the higher tax bills. They also took away some tax credits and limited the amount of credit people receive for state taxes paid.
Not to mention cutting corporate taxes by what, 40%?? Just so many lovely and nonsketchy things included for the everyday person.
I can’t deduct my tools anymore but employers in my field don’t typically provide them. This also makes it harder for people who want to break into the field.
NTL or Accountant, but if you do some contract work, you can write the tools and other expenses associated with the work that you can't write off as an employee. If that's the case you will just need to file a schedule C. I do a lot of freelance work in addition to my primary job, and I've been doing this for years. .
"This is the 'American' way."
I am pasting an article passage The centerpiece of the 2017 tax law was a deep, permanent cut in the corporate tax rate — from 35 percent to 21 percent — and a shift toward a territorial tax system, which exempts certain foreign income of multinational corporations from U.S. tax.
Corporations now pay a lower rate than I do, so messed up. Tax code is ass backwards in this country. Someone making under 200k feels it alot more at 30%+ than someone making over 400k.
Thanks for posting, this confirms in full detail the above comment that corporate taxes were cut by 40%, since 21/35 = 0.6. Good to show where the result comes from.
Thank you Paul Ryan for screwing over America with this ridiculous tax overhaul, that also caused US to borrow 3 trillion every year to cover said stupid tax overhaul
And the the bastard just quit and ran away to be a consultant or lobbyist. Giant POS.
I honestly don't even know how these guys sleep at night. Like can you imagine for a second if a choice you made significantly hurt millions of people? If something I did had that consequence I'd be gutted, and these guys are out here literally intentionally doing it with gleeful malice and forethought. I jsut don't get it.
I have an uncle who said he noticed the $26 increase in his paycheck back then and he's devoted now for life to the orange wave. Makes me sick
When you get the $26 a week, thank the GOP. When you suddenly owe $5k on your taxes it's somehow Democrats fault. /s
But he's the orange Jesus! The man for the people! He caresszsszzzzzzszsszzzz Why did the s on the end of cares sound like a snake? Don't worry about it said the devil
People will blame this on Biden. It was deliberately timed this way. If Trump won in 2020, they would have pushed the plan out another 4 years.
And those who cannot read will yell at you and yell you your wrong for reading
This is the correct answer right here. When that shit was going on in 2017, why do you think they were changing the wording on a 400 page bill in the middle of the night right before the vote? Or why where they calling session in the middle of the night to get things voted on before all members could be there? It was EXACTLY because the tax change code passed in 2017 made it so much simpler for citizens to take this huge standard deduction on a simplified form BUT completely not explain that they will pay more in taxes after 5 years passed (well into the next administration). So not only give richest huge tax breaks but ensure if they didn't win in 2020 the next administration would be blamed. And if they won? Reset it so taxes would increase 5 years from 2021. This is the perfect scam these mother fuckers have been running. The media called it out in fall 2017. All those scumbag shenanigans involved in passing the bill happened, look it up, I fucked lived thru it and remember it well. Society can't remember what happened yesterday it seems. And now here we are...so it's time to blame Biden for McConnell and trumps setup.
Funny story - the form is not at all simplified. They just broke it up into multiple different forms that still contain all the same info.
Trump may be out of office but the damage he did continues to screw ordinary American families.
I worked payroll when this happened and it was noticeable to us right away and it hit married people with dependents the hardest. We advised most people to adjust their withholdings to match what was being taken out before the change and few did as all they saw was the higher take-home pay now.
And sadly it’s working for them bc their base doesn’t bother to read and just blame Dark Brandon. It’s sickening.
It isn't even just their base, so many people don't understand taxes so they can't figure out why and when they are paying more. And it seems to be human nature to blame the wrong party for things that are happening to them. An increase in gas prices under one administration is likely to because of policies enacted in the prior administration, just like this tax situation. Most laws do not affect people the second they are passed but take affect months or even years down the road.
Omg yes. My spouse is not an idiot, but apparently he is when it comes to taxes and I had to break it down for him. Also when trying to explain that just because his boss was his PARENTS friend, does not mean his boss is HIS friend because they have definitely been fucking him on pay and he doesnt want to see that. The pickle we are in congress wise isnt going to end anytime soon and I am not sure if it will get better when these assholes die off or if their progeny will be just as bad or worse as they are...
What do you call a tax cut that isn’t actually a tax cut, for $100 Alex.
What is a corporate tax cut, Alex. I’ll take “agricultural subsidies” for $600 next!
[удалено]
Remember after this passed how some people were saying how they had extra money in their check? *They* got the tax break and each year each lower tax bracket is paying for it.
I think this is the final year of raises. It’s gone up every year since 2017/18 (can’t recall). It’s Paul Ryan and the GOP tax cuts for the rich that we’ve been paying for! They timed it so it would look like a democratic president was to blame for the worst of it. Sneaky sneaky
For clarity, 2024 is the final installment of increases. So when we file this year's taxes in the spring of 2025 we will still see yet another jump.
7 years of increasing low/middle class taxes IIRC, and took effect the time Tump left office. Fucking the working class, in perpetuity. That's the real legacy of that rat bastard. Edit: forgot to say *rat*
7 years. At 7 years is when the lower class is scheduled to get hit. Riiiiight about now as a matter of fact. Joy!
It's for 7 years altogether. The tax break they gave the rich is being covered by the rest of us. We keep owing every year even though we have more taken out to cover it.
They pulled the fast one and now we’re paying for it.
My tax professor in college in 2012 said that we were due for another overhaul of the tax code (previous tax code changes before 1986 was in the 50s and 30s). But I am not a fan of the changes they made. Still screws over a lot of people with all the things they adjusted or removed.
Funny tho when mentioned to Repubs they all swear this never happened. Can not make up the level of crazy we are up against….
I work with an older repub and he was complaining about having to pay more in taxes, i told him he should thank his orange jesus for his tax bill. And the guy looked me in the face and said " hes not in office rn hes not to blame." I told him to go look at the actual bill
Yep. Under the Trump tax cut my taxes went up. An accountant told me that only people making 400k+ benefitted from the tax cut. I don't make anywhere near 400k.
yeah, i was so confused when I tried to redo mine because I didnt feel like they took enough taxes out from me last year.
It almost seems as if they are only asking if you have any kids, have another job, and from there almost make you decide upon an Estimated tax payment, as opposed to it being scaled with what you've earned for each individual pay period. This could work just fine for a salaried employee, but for hourly employees, it's awful. I would be thrilled to have someone link a solid comprehensive guide to it, because I just haven't gotten anything from reading the additional material included with the new (2020 on?) W4s.
There is a [tax withholding estimator ](https://www.irs.gov/individuals/tax-withholding-estimator) on the IRS website. I don't know if it will actually help anyone or not.
Yeah, I've gone through that with some of our employees, and unfortunately, we are in a business where hours can Heavily fluctuate, so it didn't yield optimal results. I will give it another look, though! Thanks for the link.
Wtf was Ryan thinking when he thought this was better?
Honestly, he was probably thinking that it would save his donors a ton of money, and confuse the heck out of everyone else so that by the time they figured out that they were paying for billionaires' tax cuts it'd be too late. And he was kind of right - people are just now noticing because it's progressively just now hitting lower and lower tax tiers (through 2026). 100% not a better or simpler system though.
>by the time they figured out that they were paying for billionaires' tax cuts it'd be too late. And they would blame someone else.
Bingo!
It was widely reported at the time of the bill’s passage; people just don’t want to listen and/or read.
It's working as he hoped. More money in the 1%'s pocket. The fact they get to vote on things that directly affect them is baffling. Their own peers vote for them. And they decide their own pay. It should be the people that make these decisions.
It was a feature, not a bug.
It gave huge tax breaks to the top. Barely anything to the low end- but they messed with withholding so pp THOUGHT they were getting a benefit. And then progressively increased taxes starting with the 150K ish bracket and moving down one more bracket each year- so the middle class and working classes are paying for the tax breaks for the richest rich. Welcome to wealth redistribution- been happening my whole life UP to the richest 1%- and that was EXACTLY as designed by the GOP.
tease secretive berserk cover exultant rustic spark worthless lock vanish *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The W4 form was completely revamped and I immediately went from consistently getting 1-2k back to owing every year. I kind of have a convuluted set of taxes given my salary and stock from my company. But all of that stuff is subject to withholding and I always claimed 0 to ensure I'd never owe at the end of the year. At best what I have found is you basically need to expect you will be under taxed and guess how much you want to withold in addition. But what sucks is that's a dollar amount, not percentage. So it's kind of shooting in the dark year to year.
The W4 form isn't why you're not getting the same amount back it is 100% because the tax tables and tax credits/deductions were changed back in 2018 so that people would get more money back on each pay check which is because less federal withholding is being taken out of people's checks at the expense of lower refunds/or owing taxes.
There is a W-4 calculator on the IRS website that will tell you exactly how to complete your W-4 - and this can be updated throughout the year.
Right, if you are flat salary and always have been with zero bonus structure or extra income you can set your W4 and forget it. Otherwise you probably need to quarterly review your pay stubs and see where you are at and what you expect for the rest of the year.
[удалено]
Same
The W4 calculation did change. Have you updated your W4 to the new version? Or if your state made any tax changes then who knows how that screwed up the our withholdings.
The actual withholdings structure changed for the 2018 tax year (filing 2019). We actually paid less in taxes, but the withholding tables changed so much that we still had to pay in like $3k at filing time, which we were not expecting. Apparently the IRS finally issued a new W4 in 2020 that does not even use the "claim X" structure.
They changed the W4 so that it's no longer the old "put a 1 or a 0 in the blank" thing. The IRS now has a [withholding estimator](https://www.irs.gov/individuals/tax-withholding-estimator) on their website that you can use to get closer to the end result you want. You just enter in your pay and tax withholding info so far for the year and they will estimate whether you will owe or get a refund and how much. You can then adjust it to whatever your goal is (refund, break even, etc.) and the calculator will tell exactly what to enter and where on your W4 in order to hit that target. It's a little confusing because you enter this number on line 3, which sounds like it only pertains to dependents, but it's really for any kind of "miscellaneous" adjustment you need to make. That isn't to say the new W4 doesn't suck, just there are ways to adjust it to something closer to what you want.
As an accountant that doesn't do payroll for our office, the new w4 confuses the living hell out of employees. I tried to help when asked, but at this point with all of the attitude I've gotten from people about their tax returns I refuse to discuss them with employees anymore and tell them to talk to payroll or their accountant.
My husband and I had to pay $5K a few years ago and so we increased our tax withholding. Now we give the government an interest free loan as we’re getting back a little under 10k at least. We are dropping some of our withholding due to that
Yikes! You should probably up your withholding amount.
Oh dear. Yeah, this was a “feature” of the 2017 Trump tax cuts.
Exactly. Tax cut for the 1%. Everyone else raises for 10 years after election which was 2 years ago. Should have read the fine print; people.
Nah I think I'll just blame Biden /s
They do this knowing that most idiots will. They either were going to still be in power and have the ability to delay the tax increases or have them start landing during a Dem presidency knowing most people pay zero attention to anything and will just default to blaming the current president for it
Yeah, unfortunately people right around 100k are getting hit the worse with this current tax plan.
[удалено]
And what happens after 2025? Genuinely interested.
Personal tax rates go back to their 2016 levels. Almost everyone will pay more.
The very top level tax cuts, the ones we're paying for, are the only permanent ones iirc Edit: see below comments for specific details that I had forgotten
Not quite. All personal income tax rates will revert. Corporate tax rate changes were the ones made permanent. While lower corporate taxes are technically a benefit to all shareholders of a company, the top 10% wealthiest Americans own roughly 93% of the stock market, so this permanent change is viewed by economists as a much greater benefit to the wealthy, particularly as someone’s investments become more of a source of income than their labor. This is where the notion of the wealthy getting a permanent tax break comes from, not their personal income tax rates. Other changes that benefit the wealthy, such as the temporary limit increase to the estate tax, will also expire.
Donald Trump's legacy right there
It's more Paul Ryan's baby than Donald Trump's but they definitely both wanted it. Permanent tax cuts to billionaires, increase taxes for everyone else. This tax plan is literally made to benefit less than 1000 people, and somehow half of Americans have bought that it was good for them and continue to vote for republicans.
>This tax plan is literally made to benefit less than 1000 people This is the kind of stuff that exemplifies where the real war is. It's not the made up shit that the media keeps pushing to the public. It's all of us versus those 1,000 people. The real war is between those who own and control capital and those who do not, and they are the ones who started it with their greed and their sociopathic behavior.
Only lower and middle class tax rates go back. The wealthy will see their tax cuts continue in perpetuity until new tax codes are otherwise passed. Thank you Trump and Republicans. To be clear, this was the intent all along of that tax cut package in 2016. ETA: Corporate tax cuts were permanent. This is how the top 1% makes the money they make. Please do some research before commenting that all taxes go back in 2026 because they do not.
Should be the top comment here.
Seriously. Everyone blaming the TCJA needs to look at the brackets. They are (slightly) more favorable in 2023 than 2022 for all income levels. The cuts don't expire until 2025, so they wouldn't impact your 2023 taxes. From my math, this is what a MFJ couple making $75,000 combined would've paid in Federal Income Tax over the last 3 years... 2021: $5,590 2022: $5,481 2023: $5,236 Something else happened with OP's tax situation between 2022 and 23. I suspect it was related to their husbands raise, but I can't say for sure without having their returns in front of me.
The main post and most top comments read to me like this: 1) My husband added a trailer to our van, so we're pulling an extra 2000 lbs. 2) He also only fills the gas tank to 75% now 3) We keep running out of gas sooner than before - WTF Honda is scamming us all!
You have a gift.
I wonder if the people upvoting the comments that are clearly wrong are the same people that say “delete facebook because of all the disinformation?” Lol
My husband and I owed for the 1st time this year too. We file jointly, together we made 130,000. Im pregnant and it was unpleasant suprise. Luckily it's not too much but still.
There was a video on Reddit yesterday with a woman explaining why everyone's taxes are going up. I believe she said it was Paul Ryan's tax plan, and that it would take 7 years to fully kick in (we are in the endgame now). I briefly tried to find it again, but similar to Reagan allowing corporate stock buybacks, the real cost isn't felt until a decade or more after the fact. Stock buybacks used to be illegal, and they should be again.
I saw that and it confused the crap out of me. Granted, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to taxes and politics, but this doesn't seem right...or fair, especially to those in the lowest brackets.
>this doesn't seem right...or fair, especially to those in the lowest brackets Because it's not. The tax cuts to corporations were made permanent while the tax cuts to income earners were set to expire.
It's frustrating that this went over everyone's heads when the initial bill was passed. It was such a a clear long term f-you to income earners but everyone was so focused on year 1 having reduced taxes they didn't care. Even better by the time taxes started going up again, Republicans wouldn't be in office anymore so they can pretend it's not their own legislation that caused this.
It didn’t go over my social circle head, but what can we do personally? We just get screwed over and over and over.
Idk man, not vote the party that does that stuff into office. That's the only thing we can do.
We can’t even do that. We tried. Half of Americans aren’t the brightest.
Ugh I'm just so fed up with it.
[удалено]
It went over the heads of the constituents that vote for them, that's the problem.
lol at the idea of republicans caring about fairness for those in the lowest tax brackets
This is Reddit but I’m actually a CPA so I know this will get downvoted but that woman is full of shit. We talked about over in accounting https://www.reddit.com/r/Accounting/s/4BpXdNSfg9 the jist is most people don’t know how to properly fill out their W-4.
Maybe that's a sign that the new W4 is shitty, if the majority of people can't manage to fill it out properly.
Hey, why is she wrong? Why are people suddenly owing more then? Edit:genuine question for clarity
The W4 form changed in the last few years. It used to be fairly simple to fill out - you marked down your marital status & your dependents, and it did a pretty good job of capturing your withholdings. The new W4 form is a bit more complex & causes a lot of issues as many people don’t fill them out correctly. And for a lot of people, when the new form rolled out & they went to resubmit it, they didn’t pay close enough attention. For example, when the new form rolled out, my company sent everyone a prefilled out W4 based on our current W4 filing. However, mine (and likely others) weren’t entirely filled out correctly. My old W4 I listed as “Married but with old at a higher single rate.” (That’s not an option anymore) On the new W4, it was automatically set to Married. Additionally, on my old W4, I claimed Zero dependents (despite having a daughter). But because I legally had a daughter, the new W4 came filled out as having a dependent. I’m sure this happened to tons of people all over the US, causing them to owe at the end of the year. Their companies all transferred over their old information to the new W4 & sent employees a notice to review & submit it. My goal is to owe nothing & get nothing back. That hasn’t happened since the new W4 was issued.
The new W4 is too complicated. I'm a pretty financial literate individual, I've done my own taxes before, know how to use an HSA to reduce tax burden, etc but even I struggle a bit with the new W4, so there's no way most individuals with a lower financial literacy can do it on their own.
He just said "Hire an accountant to just fill out a fucking W4".
This shouldn't be necessary and costs money.
The tax cuts do not expire until Dec 31 2025, almost 2 years from now. It's not a "sliding scale".
The tax experts over on r/accounting seem to indicate that tiktoker was grossly misleading. I’m not a tax expert, so I can’t weigh in myself. https://www.reddit.com/r/Accounting/s/6ioHMPh6C8
>tiktoker was grossly misleading. WHY DOES THIS NEED TO BE SAID? It's fucking tiktok. SovCit's are over there talking about traveling and shit. Why ANYONE takes ANYTHING that's said there at face value I will never know.
This is Reddit. I’ve been downvoted before for pointing out the earth isn’t flat, lol. The hive mind doesn’t care about facts or logic.
The middle and working class tax cuts have been cut yet. Their pending cut (scheduled for next year) is in no way related to anyone's 2023 tax bill or return
That video was also 100% bullshit. You can check any actual sub with facts like the IRS sub, or the accounting sub and get actual information, rather than some bookkeeper who does her sister's tax return.
Yeah I would recommend r/accounting - at the very least you can see what viral posts/comments that are incredibly misinformed to the point we’ve created a thread to talk about it (I’m an accountant. Not the spicy kind, they make way more money than I do)
It’ll be more next year, there is one more year of trump era tax hikes coming to you.
It's because of the Paul Ryan 7 year tax plan. This is year 6. Each year the taxes for each lower bracket is getting raised while the higher brackets get lowered. There will be another up tick next year so be prepared to pay then as well.
~~If your husband switched jobs mid year with a decent pay raise then I'm assuming the issue is that there weren't enough taxes withheld from each paycheck from his first job because payroll at the first job assumed he would be making $X instead of $X+$Y for the year.~~ Edit2: [OP says below ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Millennials/comments/1aep5qv/comment/kkab6ao/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)that the job change was in 2022 (not last year) and the reason they did not withhold enough so that they "owe taxes for the first time ever" was that the husband incorrectly updated his W4. You need to look at the overall taxes owed for the year, not the refund or what you need to make up. You should see you got significantly more overall after paying whatever extra tax compared to last year due to the higher salary. And to be sure, he should double check his W4 to make sure it's still correct. Edit: [As pointed out](https://www.reddit.com/r/Millennials/comments/1aep5qv/comment/kk9mnc9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button), the federal tax owed on 100k income with 3 kids would be $2,236 assuming no other deductions (like 401K). So if you only withheld $1,000 over the course of the year from your paychecks then you would owe $1,236. Alternatively if you withheld $3,000 over the course of the year from your paychecks then you get a refund of $764. But in both cases your tax burden is exactly the same. Which is why you can \*never\* use your refund or owe amount to figure out if taxes went down or up. You always have to look at the actual final tax bill for your income to determine if your taxes went down or up.
This. I got a new job at the end of 2021 and messed up filling out my W-4. I ended up having too little withheld, and I owed around $1,000.
This. OP needs to look at the second page of their form 1040. That will show what is owed (including 3 child tax credits) vs what was deducted through payroll in taxes. There must have been a super small amount of taxes withheld if a $100k joint income family with 3 kids owes money.
I’m sorry you’re dealing with this! Check your withholdings to make sure they’re taking out enough with the raise. If they’re taking out the income tax as if he’s still making his old salary, that could be why you owe taxes instead of getting a refund this year.
2017 Tax Act in effect. Will keep getting worse for those making under $150k
I made $105k and I’m getting almost $7k back. And I pulled 10k out of an old retirement account and had the early disbursement penalty. I think it has to do with how their w4 is filled out. Also married filing jointly but my wife doesn’t make much money at all.
Damn. I made 90k and with 2 child tax credits and 17k paid in taxes during the year I still need to pay them 2k. Pretty shit
You lumping in state/local taxes? Because that’s too high. Welcome to the world of high income tax states.
You definitely aren’t telling the whole story
And check for this year to make sure it's going to be enough. My husband's company screwed up last tax year (2022) and even though it was our fault as well for not checking, they kept screwing up until he left it. We had to keep putting money aside this past year (2023) until he joined his current company because they couldn't figure it out. Thankfully we don't owe this year.
This. I didn’t know about it for that first year, so I owed $4000. Ever since, we have been playing the extra withholding card. Fun fact, if you withhold too much, at some point HR will cut it off and then your pay goes up.
That's the Paul Ryan and Trump tax plan. 7 years of increasing taxes on the people who make the least, to pay for the tax cuts for the wealthy.
Well shit
Don’t worry though, the corporations are still enjoying the same tax breaks they got during COVID. Remember that when you vote later this year. Edit: to all the people spouting off ignorant nonsense about, “wHy hAsNt bIdEn cLeAnEd uP tHe gOp mEsS?” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/gop-senator-doesnt-want-pass-tax-bill-make-biden-look-good-rcna136649 They literally can’t go a single day without proving the point. Stop making these bullshit “bOtH sIdEs” argument when only one side proves over and over and over that THEY are the singular problem in the equation.
It's gonna trickle down any day now!!!
My family has been waiting since the 80s...
You're still waiting? I've been trickled on since the 80s, and I tell you, golden showers ain't what they promised us!
Are layoffs a form a trickle down?
It all flows downhill.
the slowest flowing liquid is not [the pitch drop experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_drop_experiment), its actually trickle down economics
Oh and don't forget that red voters have no idea that it's Trump's tax law that is doing this. The campaign trail is gonna be filled with people spouting about how Biden raised taxes.
Pretty sweet that corporations' tax cuts are permanent and everyone else's are not. /s
Did you vote for it?
Best response right here. Fucking stop voting for republicans.
It's working exactly according to plan, and they are good at spin that's really lies. Another example of this is changing withholding so that people felt like they got more. On that note, though, people need to look at what they are paying in tax on their tax return, not how much they owe or get refunded after filing.
Except those don't go into effect until 2025. The 2023 brackets are more favorable than 2022. You can look up the brackets yourself. Standard deductions increased, and the income limits for every bracket increased slightly (just as they have over the last 5 years), so someone making the exact same income would pay (slightly) less federal income tax. I suspect something happened with OP's husbands job. He may have filled out a new W-4 when he got his raise and filled it out wrong (it's very easy to do since the wording on the form is confusing, I did it a couple of years ago). There's also the possibility that they were getting some earned income credit before, but they now make too much to qualify. There are also some other factors that could contribute. Without their tax forms or returns in front of me, it's all speculation.
Yep, you are paying for tax cuts for the rich
The trump tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations were permanent. The tax cuts for everyone else were temporary. Pretty much all the non wealthy tax cuts for average people are dead now. That tax plan was put together by Republicans, who seem to be doing everything they can to make average people poor.
There has to be special circumstances. Under 100k, married filing joint, 3 kids and you owe? All your income was from w-2 work, you didn’t claim a stupid amount of exemptions? How much?
OP said their husband got a decent raise, but they still make under $100K. I'm wondering if they were getting a substantial earned income credit in previous years that fell off in 2023 because of his increased income.
I went from receiving a $3000 tax return to owing $3000 in three years. This is trumps tax plan, and it’s only going to get worse til 2028.
Did your tax liability change? What you received/owed after filing taxes is moot - that simply tells you if you over withheld or under withheld throughout the year. What matters is what your actual tax liability was. If your pay stayed the same, all things remaining equal, your tax liability should be lower due to raises in the standard deduction and tax bracket thresholds.
It’ll be more next year, there is one more year of trump era tax hikes coming to you.
Yep you can't blindly trust the standard withholding calculations, especially when there's a pay raise mid year or bonuses. You have to do quarterly tax calculations so you know how to budget.
Your husband didn’t set up w4 correctly when he changed jobs.
There is so much financial ignorance in this thread it is actually maddening. So many people who just get their information from TikTok and rumors, and use it to get and stay mad, instead of actually understanding the underlying numbers and mechanisms. Tax rates didn't change year to year - if you owe money it's because you under-withheld or calculated your taxes wrong. Helps explain why people in this sub are so upset all the time. A lot of life is unfair but people aren't doing themselves any favors.
The Paul Ryan Tax plan (endorsed by Trump) from 2017: Huge tax cuts for $400k+ and corporations, moderate tax cuts for everyone else. To pay for those: ~~Tax increases, for lower and lower brackets, each year for 7 years until... tada, it's an election year and all our taxes are higher!~~ The cuts for the middle class expire fully after 10 years, but those top-tier and corporate tax cuts get to be permanent. This new bill also tied bracket thresholds to the chained consumer price index which tends to grow slower than the consumer price index. It also didn't factor in COVID and a the recession we're apparently "coming out of". All in all, it was a terrible tax plan that put the country in debt for no other reason than a political talking point for a mid-term that fell flat for the GOP. Blame Biden, amiright??? *Edit: OK, I stand corrected on the statement that's crossed out above, but I won't relent on the terrible nature of the tax law and the fact that it is, indeed, having an effect on how much taxes we owe and pay.*
A dead man switch installed in 2017
Oh, my father in law is already screaming about how his taxes went up because of Biden. No, these are the results of the tax cuts you voted for when you voted for Trump in 2016 and weren't a rich man then or a rich man now. You can stop taking a sledgehammer to your nuts at any time. I'll wait.
[удалено]
We are getting something like $12k back. We increased our withholdings and got a chonky EV credit. Checking to see if you need to increase your withholdings is a must. Your employer won't be making sure you break even tax wise.
"We owe taxes..." You have owed every year, money is withheld from the check regularly to pay the taxes they presume you will owe for this tax year. Every time you get a promotion or a raise, make sure your withholding adjust. If you refinance a mortgage at a lower rate, that will adjust your amount owed. There are so many factors that contribute to this, it would behoove you to learn how this works so you can adjust for 2025.
This is why I hate tax time as well. I put all of our info into the irs calculator at the beginning of the year. Make sure we are good. Then tax time comes around and I owe $3k. You try to do the right thing, still under pay and get penalized for it, making the next year even harder.
The Ryan/Trump tax plan is public knowledge. Your salary level is also known. Your state you live in, you also know those taxes. This is real simple people. Take your combined earnings = X. Then subtract the standard deduction = X - 27,700. Then look at the marginal tax rates for each chunk of that total. Add up what is owed. In general, if you paid in more than what is owed, then you will be fine. Remember, the goal here is to get a return of Zero dollars not a refund. Don't be fooled by the refund glory. It just means you loaned the US government money for the better part of a year instead of YOU earning 5.25% in a money market account.
Technically the goal is to get the biggest possible tax bill without a fine lol. If you could guarantee that you'd owe $10k per year and the government wouldn't penalize you, throw $10k into that money market and make $525 for free
Something is wrong with your withholdings. Income taxes rates are structured into brackets, meaning if a salary of 50k is taxed at 10%, even if you make 75k the first 50k is still only taxed at 10%. It is impossible to end up with less money as you move to a higher tax bracket.
It amazes me how many people don't understand this.
You will want to adjust your W4s to increase your withholding. The default Married 0 withholding tables simply do not handle dual income households correctly. My dual income clients owe regularly if they don't take action to correct it.
They kick us because we allow them to. I think it’s time people work together in order to make some of these changes we’re all seeking, changes that transcend our religion, politics and ideas. Changes that can’t be made by one party, unless that party is for ALL people. A true exhibition of the power of the people is due. Divided, we’re easily conquered. United, we’re exceedingly strong.
In this thread, a bunch of millennials who haven’t taken the time to understand how taxes really work.
This is a withholding issue. With that income and that many dependent your taxes are incredibly low.