<na> W4 tax form help </>

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

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For 2 years, I have been happy with my paychecks.
My company was bought out a few weeks back and so we have to re do a bunch of stuff.

I get my W4 form to fill out and now there is this nifty little sheet attached where you jump through a bunch of hoops and determine what to allow.

I did it exactly as instructed on the form, submitted it and suddenly my paycheck was a grand less than before. So following the exact steps on the form as instructed, they hold out another 2k each month from my checks. WTF

I dug up my old W4 and had the nice HR lady run the numbers using the allowances I put on that one and was only able to get ~500 back.

Nothing changed. Same number of kids. Same number of wives, no income changes, not a new year (calendar or fiscal)...

Why would supplying the same # of allowances on my W4 suddenly increase the withholding?

1. How do I get the most $ on my checks (the gov't can have their cut in April)?
2. Is anyone just filling out the form as instructed is going to get screwed for the next 11 months?
 
Hmmmm, government form used by employer to send a portion of your earnings to the government. Danger Will Robinson, danger.

Maybe get the advice of a tax oriented CPA. After saying that, about the only thing you can do is change number of dependents to get the level of withholding set correctly. The W4 form doesn’t know you may have a mortgage or other legal deductions like a cocaine habit that is supplied through a medical prescription. There are some possible penalties for not withholding enough so the advise of a tax person might be a good idea...or just swag it and then make a video.
 
Not enough info. Sounds like you pay at tax time, which I approve of, I try to do the same thing because I don't like giving interest free loans to the Treasury. The question becomes if you pay too much in April resulting in penalties and interest, which is not with the govt wants with the forms. I try for a 0 balance, +/- 500 at the end of the year.
 
You should be able to use your actual tax liability from 2017 and work back to the correct number on the form to be zero return.

I don't use the math on the instructions to do that.
 
There's no requirement to follow the detailed directions on the W4 form. You take yourself (no option) then select as many dependents as you like.

Additionally, you can submit a different W4 form at any time, as many times as you'd like during the year. Don't like the current paycheck? Submit a new W4 with fewer deductions and see what the next paycheck looks like.

There are various calculators online to help you determine the deductions.
 
I want a calculator that says "Enter what you want your paycheck to be, number of pay periods, and gross salary" and it tells me to claim X
 
You should be able to do that in asp.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I want a calculator that says "Enter what you want your paycheck to be, number of pay periods, and gross salary" and it tells me to claim X
Click to expand...

There’s a box for “withhold this dollar amount per pay period” if you’re playing it that way. Look carefully at the main portion of the form, not the “worksheet” stuff attached to it.

Keep in mind there were some major tax changes for 2018. Severely under-withholding can lead to penalties, over-withholding just leads to a large refund and the government getting a long term loan from you.

We keep on top of our withholding numbers so there fairly close to “correct” and adjust as needed.

Last year I had $100 refund from State and $100 refund from Federal. Hard to do better than that. LOL.
 
1) I think if you claim more than 9 dependents the IRS gives you a call.
2) You can figure your 2018 taxes based on your 2017 taxes but you may be one of those getting more than crumbs in tax cuts and may not withhold enough.
3) One way to do what you want is to look at your last W2 and divide the amount withheld by 26 or 24 and then just put that on your W4.
 
Why do people keep writing "Dependents?" The form is to calculate ALLOWANCES. Dependents are one potential allowance, if you'll meet the criteria and no one else claims said dependent.

As to under-withholding, I believe it is still true that if you have made payments (withholding) totaling the same amount as your prior years total tax liability you are not subject to any penalties.
 
Kansas Flyer said:
Which is absolute BS IMO. I should be able to withhold nothing and pay it all in one lump sum every spring if I so desire.
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Would you be OK working the whole year, and only getting paid once a year after you've done all the work?
 
I was exempt last year....and this year had to start paying. I needed a modest amount withheld...so we used 22. No calls from anyone and it was a trial and error process. It took two tries to arrive at that more like a Divide and concour method. The first one was half what I wanted so I ratio’d it and used that to estimate for the second try. Which is within a few dollars of what I wanted...so we called it good.
 
Kansas Flyer said:
Which is absolute BS IMO. I should be able to withhold nothing and pay it all in one lump sum every spring if I so desire.
Click to expand...

Ostensibly our income tax system is “pay as you go” so they want something from you as you receive a check, or if you’re a business owner, “quarterly”. Mostly because they know better than anyone that Americans don’t budget and don’t save.

Making it come directly out of paychecks is genius. Hardly anyone could tell you exactly what they paid in taxes today for last year. People just don’t pay any attention.

Billions ****ed away while they spend trillions. It’s truly an impressive ponzi scheme. All you need are some hired guns and a whole lot of idiots who’ll say there is a “social contract” and you’re set for life. You don’t even have to run a balanced budget.
 
When Textron took us over and we went from monthly to weekly time accounting we had all sorts of fun. First, I was accumulating annual leave at 4x the normal rate. That was neat (they did fix it). Alas, an employee who had put a specific amount of withholding on his W4, now found they were taking the monthly amount out each week. All this wasn't helped by the fact that our bookkeeper had a minor stroke in the middle of all this.
 
EdFred said:
There are people that do jobs for the government, and those people get paid by our tax dollars.

F all of them, eh?
Click to expand...
Nice straw man argument, but if folks were allowed to pay their taxes in one lump sum instead of out of each pay check they still collect the same amount of taxes in the end. Hell, our property taxes here are billed out once a year (although you do have the option to make two payments) and county employees still seem to get paid.
 
I think you are overthinking it. Sounds like you got a raise that bumped you into the next tax bracket, so it's a net decrease in take home pay. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
 
How much did the tax bill affect withholding? Remember that it changed ho dependents were handled....
 
Kansas Flyer said:
Nice straw man argument, but if folks were allowed to pay their taxes in one lump sum instead of out of each pay check they still collect the same amount of taxes in the end. Hell, our property taxes here are billed out once a year (although you do have the option to make two payments) and county employees still seem to get paid.
Click to expand...

Only strawman is in Kansas with Dorothy. They may get the same amount of taxes in the end, but they are going to have to take more bonds, more loans, et al to float until April every year. Either that or they don't and then they pay all the employees and contractors some time around June. Tell ya what. Don't cash any paychecks from now until next April, and see how you do. Oh, and our property taxes are not paid once a year.
 
EdFred said:
Only strawman is in Kansas with Dorothy. They may get the same amount of taxes in the end, but they are going to have to take more bonds, more loans, et al to float until April every year. Either that or they don't and then they pay all the employees and contractors some time around June. Tell ya what. Don't cash any paychecks from now until next April, and see how you do. Oh, and our property taxes are not paid once a year.
Click to expand...
IN PA and NY, property taxes are due once a year (but usually broken up between school (the biggie) and municipalities.
 
EdFred said:
Only strawman is in Kansas with Dorothy. They may get the same amount of taxes in the end, but they are going to have to take more bonds, more loans, et al to float until April every year. Either that or they don't and then they pay all the employees and contractors some time around June. Tell ya what. Don't cash any paychecks from now until next April, and see how you do. Oh, and our property taxes are not paid once a year.
Click to expand...
I believe you're thinking of the Land of Oz. If budgeted properly collecting taxes once or twice a year would change absolutely nothing and like I said before MY local county seems to manage this just fine.

Its really a moot point as i'm sure very few people would choose to forgo withholdings and pay all at once. Budgeting for anticipated taxes would be an unwanted inconvenience for most people so the impact of the few who might choose to do so would be minimal.
 
Your responses indicate you might need some lessons on cash flow. After you get those, come back to the discussion.
 
EdFred said:
Your responses indicate you might need some lessons on cash flow. After you get those, come back to the discussion.
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Your responses indicate that you're stubborn and can't accept it when your arguments have been successfully refuted.

As for cash flow, I wonder what all those farmers that take in most of their annual income over the course of a month do? Oh wait, a budget.
 
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SixPapaCharlie said:
For 2 years, I have been happy with my paychecks.
My company was bought out a few weeks back and so we have to re do a bunch of stuff.

I get my W4 form to fill out and now there is this nifty little sheet attached where you jump through a bunch of hoops and determine what to allow.

I did it exactly as instructed on the form, submitted it and suddenly my paycheck was a grand less than before. So following the exact steps on the form as instructed, they hold out another 2k each month from my checks. WTF

I dug up my old W4 and had the nice HR lady run the numbers using the allowances I put on that one and was only able to get ~500 back.

Nothing changed. Same number of kids. Same number of wives, no income changes, not a new year (calendar or fiscal)...

Why would supplying the same # of allowances on my W4 suddenly increase the withholding?

1. How do I get the most $ on my checks (the gov't can have their cut in April)?
2. Is anyone just filling out the form as instructed is going to get screwed for the next 11 months?
Click to expand...
Don't do all that how many exemptions stuff. Figure out about what your tax is going to be for the year. Then divide by twelve, 26, 52, whatever depending on often you get paid and have that much with held per pay period. There's a box to check and you enter the amount. I do that and under with hold up through September and then get caught up the rest of the year. You can submit a new W4 as many times as you want. Your payroll person may not like it if you do it a lot but they gotta do it.
 
Van Johnston said:
I think you are overthinking it. Sounds like you got a raise that bumped you into the next tax bracket, so it's a net decrease in take home pay. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Click to expand...

hindsight2020 said:
That's not how progressive tax brackets work.
Click to expand...

Beat me to it. Hah. How the hell does this silly broken notion of tax brackets continue to be believed by so many people?

You’re only taxed at the higher rate on money that goes above the bracket limit. Money earned below the limit is still taxed at the lower rate.

A raise always therefore, is a raise.

EdFred said:
Your responses indicate you might need some lessons on cash flow. After you get those, come back to the discussion.
Click to expand...

Cash flow problems would be rather silly at the Federal level where they’re operating on debt anyway. It’s literally a “who cares?” argument. Oh no, they’ll pay a tiny bit more interest on the $20T. It’s not like they can’t just devalue the fiat currency to screw with their debtors anyway, which they already do regularly.

A debt based Ponzi scheme where the debtor controls the value of money, claiming it has a cash flow problem, is somewhat hilarious really. It keeps the naive thinking they have some sort of “cash scarcity” and “need” I suppose.

At lower levels, much less debt is tolerated or sometimes even has to be voted upon by taxpayers, so it actually means more to have a cash flow problem at county, municipal, and special taxation district levels than at Federal. And yet, those are the entities that seem quite capable of annual payments. Huh. Amazing.

One might thing quarterlies are more about busywork for a massive IRS staff so there’s a reason to maintain the jobs year round, and also back to my initial commentary that they can’t trust Americans to save for an entire year.

Along that “if you’re not an idiot you can plan for a year ahead yourself” tidbits, most people don’t know their mortgage lender doesn’t have to be the trustee of their property tax and homeowner’s insurance escrow account, either... you can run your own and avoid all their stupid fees by simply opening a separate savings or checking account.

It’s really dumb to pay them to manage a savings account you can get for free from your choice of bank or credit union, but most people just pay and use the lenders escrow account. Some lenders charge a lot of money per year to manage that. Something it takes no time at all to manage yourself.

People can’t plan. That’s all it’s about. FedGov doesn’t have a cash flow problem anywhere but an imaginary one to make their collections look legitimate, like they’re actually paying for all of the services rendered and crap purchased.

California issued State IOUs for a while once like a third world country would. FedGov would never have to do that. They’d just manipulate their own loans via interest changes.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I didn't get no raise.
Click to expand...

Didja get overtime, holiday pay, other stuff that gives you a bigger pay than usual for that pay period? For the purposes of witholding that payperiod it is assumed that you'll continue to get that and it extrapolates into higher annual gross. It'll push you up the brackets.
 
luvflyin said:
Didja get overtime, holiday pay, other stuff that gives you a bigger pay than usual for that pay period? For the purposes of witholding that payperiod it is assumed that you'll continue to get that and it extrapolates into higher annual gross. It'll push you up the brackets.
Click to expand...

Which still wouldn’t lower his take home. Go read up on how progressive tax brackets actually work.
 
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