I've been hearing from quite a few people that their tax returns weren't as good as they have been in the past. Some Trump passed is their reason. I expected a little more, but nothing horribly short. How is everyone else fairing compared to other years?
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Most people don't understand the concept of tax returns and withholdings.
A lot of people had less money withheld from their paychecks throughout the year and still had some return-netting more money in their pockets as compared to previous years. Unfortunately since so many do not understand that concept, they view their "refund" as an indicator of taxes.
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I made several thousand more and paid less. It really depends on what your situation is. We haven't been able to itemize for about fifteen years now so many of the changes did not have an effect on us. I have always thought that people who get large tax returns are not paying attention or they would adjust withholding so that there is not a large tax return. I had ours figured close enough that I told my wife back in March of 2018 that I was going to set it up so that we should overpay by about $1000. There are several variables in our income stream due to unknowns on the ranching and real estate side of things. I guessed it close enough as our return was about $1500.
A good tax return is one where they don't send you money and you don't send them money. If you do your own taxes using something like Turbotax, you can do a dummy return for 2019 using the information that you know now and estimating the unknowns. It takes about a half hour and will give you a good idea of how you will fare on the next tax filing. If you are working for wages and know what you will be making, there really is no reason to be off more than a couple hundred dollars either way.
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Originally posted by ntxshooter View Postmost people don't understand the concept of tax returns and withholdings.
A lot of people had less money withheld from their paychecks throughout the year and still had some return-netting more money in their pockets as compared to previous years. Unfortunately since so many do not understand that concept, they view their "refund" as an indicator of taxes.
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Paid less in taxes in 2018 versus 2017 and got a bigger refund in 2018 versus 2017. I understand the more the withholdings the less taxes you pay which means more money in your pocket during the year. But I've been claiming single and 0 from day one (over 20 yrs now) and we live very comfortable and I taught myself that, that nice refund is free money and I'm allowed to spend 20% of it but the other 80% goes into a money market savings and invested in a retirement fund. And I can truly say that I could not have saved that amount of money if I had more withholdings and paid fewer taxes during the years.
It might not be right but it works great for me and I think it is all about personal preference and knowing your own situation and goals.
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Originally posted by ntxshooter View PostMost people don't understand the concept of tax returns and withholdings.
A lot of people had less money withheld from their paychecks throughout the year and still had some return-netting more money in their pockets as compared to previous years. Unfortunately since so many do not understand that concept, they view their "refund" as an indicator of taxes.
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