Just did taxes...annoyed. Other people in the same boat?

[Anonymous]

% wise we paid more taxes than last year. So using refund$ as whether you pay higher or lower taxes, do not make sense. Take your W-2 gross income. From there total up the taxes paid to state and federal. Then either minus the refund or add the additional taxes you have to pay. From this net amount divide by total income on your W-2. Do this for 2017 and 2018. Comparé the % of taxes to your income. Has it gone up or down? That is a simple calculation of total % of taxes you have paid out of income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just did ours. W-2 income only, same deductions as last year and income went up only very slightly. We are solidly middle-class with a combined taxable income well under $200k. Two kids and only mortgage to deduct. We paid more taxes in 2018 and got a much smaller refund. We saw no increase in our take-home pay when the tax cuts were implemented. The "tax cuts" were bullshit.

This is us. We paid $8k more this year and our effective tax rate increased.

$200k is wealthy, top 4% nationwide.

If you are not ready to pay $8k more (and that's because of DC tax BS), you are going to love it when you have to pay $30-40k more to fund all those lovely "progressive" ideas like free college and free healthcare and free Green jobs whatever that is

Here's an idea - before hitting the $200k taxpayers, let's first claw back the benefits that the uber wealthy got. That'll pay for quite a few of those lovely progressive ideas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:% wise we paid more taxes than last year. So using refund$ as whether you pay higher or lower taxes, do not make sense. Take your W-2 gross income. From there total up the taxes paid to state and federal. Then either minus the refund or add the additional taxes you have to pay. From this net amount divide by total income on your W-2. Do this for 2017 and 2018. Comparé the % of taxes to your income. Has it gone up or down? That is a simple calculation of total % of taxes you have paid out of income.

Turbo tax tells you this at the end. Your percentage of taxes as well as what you paid last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:% wise we paid more taxes than last year. So using refund$ as whether you pay higher or lower taxes, do not make sense. Take your W-2 gross income. From there total up the taxes paid to state and federal. Then either minus the refund or add the additional taxes you have to pay. From this net amount divide by total income on your W-2. Do this for 2017 and 2018. Comparé the % of taxes to your income. Has it gone up or down? That is a simple calculation of total % of taxes you have paid out of income.

That's true but because my salary didn't change and I didn't change my withholdings, the fact that my return is different is meaningful information. I will obviously spend some time looking over all the data as well to see whether I paid more or less in taxes overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:% wise we paid more taxes than last year. So using refund$ as whether you pay higher or lower taxes, do not make sense. Take your W-2 gross income. From there total up the taxes paid to state and federal. Then either minus the refund or add the additional taxes you have to pay. From this net amount divide by total income on your W-2. Do this for 2017 and 2018. Comparé the % of taxes to your income. Has it gone up or down? That is a simple calculation of total % of taxes you have paid out of income.

That's true but because my salary didn't change and I didn't change my withholdings, the fact that my return is different is meaningful information. I will obviously spend some time looking over all the data as well to see whether I paid more or less in taxes overall.

I mean refund.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:% wise we paid more taxes than last year. So using refund$ as whether you pay higher or lower taxes, do not make sense. Take your W-2 gross income. From there total up the taxes paid to state and federal. Then either minus the refund or add the additional taxes you have to pay. From this net amount divide by total income on your W-2. Do this for 2017 and 2018. Comparé the % of taxes to your income. Has it gone up or down? That is a simple calculation of total % of taxes you have paid out of income.

That's true but because my salary didn't change and I didn't change my withholdings, the fact that my return is different is meaningful information. I will obviously spend some time looking over all the data as well to see whether I paid more or less in taxes overall.

I mean refund.

Your withholdings probably did change unless you do flat withholdings, though. If you just have a standard W-4 with a set number of exemptions, as most do, then your withholdings went down if you didn't submit a new form. That's based on the withholding tables.

[Anonymous]

I am paying way more and am really annoyed it's being used to make Trump's grifter friends richer.

[Anonymous]

An excellent summary of the impact of the Trump tax plan
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tax-plan-consequences/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:An excellent summary of the impact of the Trump tax plan
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tax-plan-consequences/

Thanks for this.

[Anonymous]

Our tax rate went from 27.2% to 25.8% even as our income went up saving us about 10K in taxes.

But for some reason we seem to owe about that much with our return (aka the withholding tables were terrible).

[Anonymous]

We owe less; thank you POTUS; cannot wait to ploughing our savings back into the MAGA economy.

[Anonymous]

You all had me really scared so we did our taxes earlier than usual. I slightly adjusted withholding in August just as a hedge against a large deficit, and we ended up owing $500.

In a year where we switched jobs, had a kid, and bought a house...I’ll take it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our tax rate went from 27.2% to 25.8% even as our income went up saving us about 10K in taxes.

But for some reason we seem to owe about that much with our return (aka the withholding tables were terrible).

So you are making 500K+.

Around the same ball park as you on HHI and was able to hit 25.0%. Last year I had 26.9%.

What are other people getting to on effective tax rates?

[Anonymous]

Hitting 20% at 300K HHI

[Anonymous]

Wow, people less less taxes but complaining because the "refund" isn't as big, or they owe. You didn't pay attention to this when your take home was more every check and now you are shocked? Do you want to blame Trump instead of your own financial mis-management?

I hope you understand, it's entirely up to you and within your control as to how much of your paycheck you want to loan to the IRS at no interest in order to cover your tax bill. If this really took you by surprise, then you are kinda dumb.