We got hit with a $12k tax bill the first year we had our nanny because we underwithheld based on nanny tax. Anyway, for those who don't want to take the interest hit for installment payments to the IRS, I recommend getting convenience checks from a new 0 percent credit card. We used those to pay the bill in one fail swoop and took the year to pay off the credit card in $1k/month payments. Still have card, never use it, but having the unused line of credit even helped our credit score.

Ugh. We owe 15K. SE tax is a killer. And no deduction for our student loan interest or pension contributions or medical (not high enough, though oh so high). Can't do an IRA as far as I can tell. We must be doing something wrong.

My sympathies OP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those with 0 deductions being hit with a huge tax bill, what's your income? 200k? 300k? We're one income and always get money back but I will be returning to work soon and that will push us over 200k. DH thinks it's not worth it because he fears the taxes.

I'll answer. We make 175k. DH makes 100k and I make 75k. We ALWAYS owe. Neither of us claims any exemptions. Normally we owe $4500-6000. This year I withheld an extra $800 a month, which seems to have worked since we're now getting $1500 back. We are regular employees, have a large mortgage and it just baffles me every year. Neither one of us ever owed before getting married.

Do you have kids?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an actual single person doing this all alone (and raising a kid) - I'd frankly rather take the tax hit and have an actual spouse/partner in my life.

Not me. Have you read all those "My DH does nothing" threads?

sure but I can't even leave the house without my kid. Not even when she's sick and i need to pick up a prescription for her. I have trouble believing even the laziest DH doesn't help AT ALL.

That's why I suggest getting a wife. Having another loving, supportive awesome mom in the house is pretty rad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my first year filing as a married person. DH and I are both in the 25% tax bracket, but our combined income pushes us into the 28% tax bracket (thanks marriage penalty)! We're getting less back this year than when we were just living together, but unmarried. I wonder if any other PPs are being affected by this?

Story of my life. Happens to us every year. I wish we were just married socially, but legally were still single. I see no benefits to being married legally.

This is what we did. I've run the numbers and it saves us many thousands of dollars every year to be legally single. Totally ridiculous.

It's ridiculous because if you are a household with a single earner (historically male) then you get a tax break for getting married and taking care of your "little woman." And you wouldn't have childcare costs, which tax deductions don't do much to offset anyway. Clearly our tax code was written by a bunch of men who don't like the idea of a dual income household with similar earning capabilities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an actual single person doing this all alone (and raising a kid) - I'd frankly rather take the tax hit and have an actual spouse/partner in my life.

Not me. Have you read all those "My DH does nothing" threads?

sure but I can't even leave the house without my kid. Not even when she's sick and i need to pick up a prescription for her. I have trouble believing even the laziest DH doesn't help AT ALL.

with that said - i'm sure not getting married at this point unless the guy is actually nice and supportive.

The good thing is that the interest is like, .5% if you do a payment plan with the IRS. We got hit with $17k one year - we didn't do the consulting taxes right when we were starting a new business. Sucked.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an actual single person doing this all alone (and raising a kid) - I'd frankly rather take the tax hit and have an actual spouse/partner in my life.

Not me. Have you read all those "My DH does nothing" threads?

sure but I can't even leave the house without my kid. Not even when she's sick and i need to pick up a prescription for her. I have trouble believing even the laziest DH doesn't help AT ALL.

Anonymous wrote:As an actual single person doing this all alone (and raising a kid) - I'd frankly rather take the tax hit and have an actual spouse/partner in my life.

Not me. Have you read all those "My DH does nothing" threads?

As an actual single person doing this all alone (and raising a kid) - I'd frankly rather take the tax hit and have an actual spouse/partner in my life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you be legally single but still married by the church?

I guess that would depend on your church. There's probably no requirement to get the certificate if you don't want to be legally married and simply want a ceremony.

Married Catholic here. Could care less what the church thinks of my civil union. They refused to marry DH and me because he refused to get an annulment. and they wonder why we don't go to church anymore.

Anonymous wrote:I wish we were just married socially, but legally were still single. I see no benefits to being married legally.

You can just say you're married, but not do it legally (there's only a few common law marriage states) but being married has lots and lots of legal benefits to it also. We can't pick and choose to keep the benefits but not the disadvantages.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my first year filing as a married person. DH and I are both in the 25% tax bracket, but our combined income pushes us into the 28% tax bracket (thanks marriage penalty)! We're getting less back this year than when we were just living together, but unmarried. I wonder if any other PPs are being affected by this?

Story of my life. Happens to us every year. I wish we were just married socially, but legally were still single. I see no benefits to being married legally.

This is what we did. I've run the numbers and it saves us many thousands of dollars every year to be legally single. Totally ridiculous.

Good friend of mine in the Bay Area just told me that she and DH- they are very happily married - have decided to "divorce" to save on taxes. They are literally getting divorced....THAT is sad.
They just bumped up to a new tax bracket - 39.5% - plus just sold a big house.

nice loophole.

Anonymous wrote:Can you be legally single but still married by the church?

I guess that would depend on your church. There's probably no requirement to get the certificate if you don't want to be legally married and simply want a ceremony.

Can you be legally single but still married by the church?