That could mean GOP succeeded. On the individual side, TCJA was rigged to screw over coastal white collar workers to pay for tax cuts for red staters.

Don’t worry though. I am 100% sure some of them are about to get hit with a much bigger than expected tax bill when they finally do their returns.

Yeah my taxes are going to be a few k lower this year than they would have been under the old tax plan, but had I not significantly increased my withholding I would have owed a significant amount instead of owing roughly 0 which is what I normally shoot for.

TCJA implemented most of Obama’s proposals for closing loopholes (mostly in BEAT) and added GILTI. There was also a forced repatriation of income parked overseas. In fact, with exception of GILTI (Obama’s version was more of an universal minimum tax but GILTI disproportionately taxes knowledge based tech industries), the TCJA was pretty much the product of tax think tanks from both sides over the last 30 years.

On the Corp/business side of TCJA, the CBO projected something like -300 net (impact of business and int tax changes). That’s pretty close to rev neutral by Washington standards. Rest of the money all went to individuals.

Why did they do this? The GOP wanted to make sure the rank and file Chiefsplanet types saw some money.

By the way, I’d love the GOP, ideally Trump himself, fumbling over themselves trying to explain getting smaller refund != paying more in taxes.

Alright tax pros got a softball, i filled out W4 for new job and came to 5 allowances, which seem like a big number. Married, wife not working, 1 kid, standard deduction, salary around 130k for this upcoming tax year. I checked the form 20 times and got 5 each time, am I right?

Yeah they're all blathering about the standard deduction and haven't even done the returns yet.

Do you have mortgage interest? I was up to 8 deductions for a while and I still got a refund.

But also my company gave a big chunk as bonus, and their awesome software taxes the bonus as if you get paid that amount every paycheck. So I get hit with the CA millionaire's tax for that amount, and never have a clue what I should actually withhold.

On the plus side half my income this year was a bonus and severance from my old job (also taxed out the wazoo). So even though I claimed 5 allowances on the other half from the new job - I'm still getting the biggest refund I've ever gotten. I think the standard deduction thing may have really helped me. I also own a condo that I pay a lot of interest on but isn't over any caps.

And yet, Awval if you're reading you may want to sit down for this, I'd gladly trade it to get the orange buffoon to stop terrorizing children and destroying the country.

I have the same “problem” with my bonus withholding; assume this is due to a treasury regulation vs. payroll software nonsense. I tried lump sum funding my 401k max with the bonus to decrease my annoyance and have the money in the market longer, but of course the employer won’t match 6% in a lump sum, only per pay period (and if you’re maxed out, no match).

Maybe just claim 20 allowances or something on the rest of your paychecks.

It seems to me that this is a perfect opportunity for the Democratic House to start passing bills rolling back the most recent tax law and cutting middle class taxes. It won't pass the Senate or be signed by Trump, but I bet that will shift some perspectives on which party is really for middle-class tax cuts.

Both parties are for middle class tax cuts. GOP wants to pay for them with Laffer Rainbow candies and Democrats want to pay for them by taxing the rich.

Dems won’t roll back because the individual side is overall still mostly cuts and on the corporate side most of the reforms were, and still are, considered necessary.

Corporations leaving aren’t some hypothetical issue. Inversions were a thing and as long as we didn’t fall in line with most of OECD, companies would keep finding ways to invert their way out of the US.

Since TCJA, purely tax driven cross border M&A activity has basically disappeared and some clients, in mergers of equals that would easily pass IRS scrutiny, are actually weighing tax benefits of redomiciling in the UK (UK is still better for almost everyone, just not by as much as pre TCJA) against the potential for bad press.

Lol both parties are absolutely not for middle class tax cuts

Welp... w/r/t Federal Taxes:

The 2018 standard deduction is $12k. So the actor making $50k gross only pays taxes on $38k, which should be at ~12%, or ~$4.5k (10% of $9700 + 12% up to $38700).

Since there's almost no chance their deductions would exceed the standard deduction, its extremely unlikely they would itemize.

There is no chance that person needs an accountant.

You can't be serious... Facepalm.jpf

The middle class already pays very little federal income tax.

The people actually getting crushed by the income tax are high income wage earners. You know, the people who actually do work hard. Of course the GOP could give a ****, their only priority is the ownership class.

Hope the leopards are lactose tolerant

Farmers are like 99% deplorable here in Ohio, and the other 1% still voted Trump but has a gay kid or something. Womp womp.

The actor doesnt get to do gross income if they are getting W2s, which has been pointed out by people in this thread in the industry that most of them do.

In 2017 the actor could essentially gross his/her income by taking an above the line deduction(don't need to itemize to do this) of unreimbursed employee deductions. In 2018 those expenses are capped at 2% of income.

Apparently Actors/Directors/producers have a lot of expenses(agents, advertising, training, ect). Some of them would pay less money by incorporating in 2018 when they didn't need to in 2017.

Someone correct me if any of the above is wrong.

Why is this facepalm? I know people who are currently pissed because they are getting back less money this year than last year. They think they are paying more in taxes. It took some time to explain to them that they had less withheld in 2018 than in 2017 and in the end they are paying overall less tax. They are still pissed and still don't get it.

Pay no attention to the guys who do this for a living. This guy logics!

They're deducting $12k already from the standard deduction. In 2017 it was $6.4k.

If they're bringing in an accountant, they're going to have to pay that person too. So if the accountant is $200, they're going to have to come up with an additional ~$2k on top of the standard $12k, for $14k in deductable expenses to justify the cost of the accountant.

If they're being issued a W2, then its even simpler because their taxible income from employment(s) are already being identified.

If they really do have enough expenses to justify not using a 1040EZ (I forgot the EZ has been discontinued, but the new 1040 is similar to the EZ, just no schedules.), then they should first use a tax prep software like TurboTax or HRBlock for $50 and see what they get.

Yeah, there are lots of people who just want a big refund.

But its trivially easy to explain that you look at your 2017 tax return, look at the field where it identifies the total taxes paid, and compare that to the same field in 2018.

I am not sure why you keep bringing up the standard deduction. In 2017 unreimbursed employee expenses werent capped and are an above the line deductions. They didn't have to itemize to deduct them.

They would have needed an accountant in early 2018 to explain to them how they might need to incorporate in 2018 to continue taking those deductions. Most small time actors probably didnt figure that out on their own.

You adjust your gross income by your allowable expenses and figure out your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI).

You adjust your Taxable Income (TI) by subtracting out your deductions from your AGI.

So perhaps folks lost some expenses that they could use to modify their AGI, but their deductions to their TI went up by almost $6k (if they take the standard deduction), offsetting much (all?) of those lost expenses.

Spend 10 minutes and look at the 1040 form and see. It is only 2 pages.

I'm a little suspicious of folk who are already complaining about how their taxes changed.

I've only just last week started to receive some of my tax documents.

It will be the end of February before I have received all the paperwork necessary to file.