Every paycheck sucks for those not self employed

Lol at being upset you were able to quickly find a job and now have to pay taxes. Hopefully your post was littered with sarcasm.

I was disappointed.

Thx Obama was sarcasm.

I found out for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for the young, healthy, employed dudes who can afford health insurance.

Wookie, TBH, we fall into that income sliver where the premiums still take a reasonably heavy toll but we don't qualify for premium reductions. Things will be different when the wife is employed I guess, but for now it's kind of a challenge.

But thank God for Obamacare. I work for a small business (100ish employees) and our employer offers a plan with God awful converage that would cost about $750/month for the wife and I. Thanks, I'll pass on that.

Bump

Seems like my taxes take longer to do every year.

Owe Feds $500, state owes me $350

Thanks Obama

Anyone who knows about taxes want to comment on the following situation, that could potentially make me look really stupid:

In November I knew I would be working a ****ton of over time and also had a small bonus coming (under $1K).
I have access to change my W4 online, and thinking i was S-M-R-T smart, i switched to exempt for 3 pay periods so I could get more on my check before the holidays (i get paid weekly)
Changed it back in mid December.

Found out afterwards you're not supposed to claim exempt (ever?) unless you have had zero tax liability the prior year and expect the same for the current year.

Will this be an issue at all when I file taxes? Other than getting a slightly smaller return than if I had never changed my W4?

Fwiw I'm married and file jointly with 1 dependent. We make under 100k per year combined. Last several years our return has been ~$3.5 - 4k.

I'll have to wait till end of February to know.

Did a quick estimator and it said i will owe 2.5k, which is about what i owed last year. yay

at least i dont have to pay a fee for underpaying, which is nice. also still waiting on a few things so may not even owe as much as 500. As long as you owe under $1000 you usually are safe from fees

Cs3,
You should be fine as long as you changed it back and it wasn't for very long. You'll just have more taxes to pay (or less of a refund) than you normally would. It happens more often than you think. People always screw with their W-4s. When I worked in construction, I always found it hilarious the guys who were 20 and single and claiming like 8 dependents

Do you enjoy loaning the gov't 3.5-4k every year? Use an online calculator and figure out the correct number of allowances. Your bank account will be much happier (unless you think you'll spew the extra money from each paycheck).

How does non-taxable income work? If I claim $14k in per diem do I get the money back that the government took out of that 14k?

You're going to have to explain in more detail. Your company already paid you, took taxes out, and now you're trying to say it's non-taxable per diem?

What market and year was this????

2014

Truck driver. I can claim $63/day in food expenses.

yeah, that post is from Feb 2015.

Cool thanks, thats what exactly what I thought when I did it, then I pshyched myself out after digging into it a bit more after the fact.

Im not thrilled about it, but it doesnt bother me either.
Its an easier way to save for us to be honest. Just because the government "wins" doesnt mean we necessarily lose, right?

While I get (and agree) that having the money in your account over the government's is +EV, I've never fully understood this argument.

Let's say this 4k goes into my bank account and I make 2%in interest (which is higher than my actual account gives) that's only 80 bucks. And that assumes the 4k isn't built up slowly throughout the year...

If I spend 80 of these dollars frivolously throughout the year then isn't it a better idea to just lend the money to the government?

I get both sides of the argument. Depends on how the huge refund is used. If people treat the refund like a windfall and blow it, then it's worse to lend the money to the government. If the money is causing cash flow issues or limiting the amount of investments made throughout the year, it's worse to lend to the government.

Cliffs: People will do dumb stuff with their money regardless of when it arrives.

Fwiw my plans for the tax refund are:
1) pay off a big chunk of a car loan
2) make a couple baby related purchases (wife due in July on kid #2, pro tip: DONT GET MARRIED!)

This may be news to you but marriage is not a requirement for the stork to make a delivery.

Yes but marriage ensures that you have to do **** that the wife wants.
Including getting rid of all your fun cars, for "practical" ones. And having another kid after you already have one.