Anyone nervous to do their taxes?

[havaneselover]

Not sure why folks are so hung up on a smaller refund. Was your TOTAL tax more or less than last year even with the higher income ?

Agreed. It's really about your effective tax rate IMO (mine was up).

 

[MermaidMommy]

Agreed. It's really about your effective tax rate IMO (mine was up).

I agree. And, mine was up, too.

 

[tvguy]

Agreed. It's really about your effective tax rate IMO (mine was up).

Yup. Like I think I posted before, we are the poster children for tax reform. Haven't been able to itemize in 19 years. Decent but not huge income. Which is apparently a pretty big chunk of America now.

 

[WVMomof3]

Agreed. It's really about your effective tax rate IMO (mine was up).

Curious what you use to calculate your effective tax rate. I keep seeing different definitions. Do you use just your taxable income or your total income? Do you use total taxes owed or include the credits in there? I see one definition that says use new line 15. There are credits both before and after this line, so it is very confusing to me.

 

[havaneselover]

Curious what you use to calculate your effective tax rate. I keep seeing different definitions. Do you use just your taxable income or your total income? Do you use total taxes owed or include the credits in there? I see one definition that says use new line 15. There are credits both before and after this line, so it is very confusing to me.

I looked at line 15 / line 7. I don't have any credits after but I am including the credits before since that's my net tax. My rate was up 0.6 percentage points from 2017. Not a lot but not a cut. At the state tax level my rate was up 1.0 percentage point and the $200 check I'm supposed to get in October is not going to bring that down much.

And this is just what made sense to me. I don't know if it's the correct/preferred way.

 

[NYCgrrl]

I don't think it's that people were nervous to do taxes as in general. It's because of the large adjustment to the tax law. Not every state or even company was readjusting people's taxes automatically. People losing things they had gotten used to, etc. So yeah...totally understandable to be nervous about the outcome of a tax overhaul.

Pay less to one form of government and more to another is pretty much a wash for me with the same outcome: I owe.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Pay less to one form of government and more to another is pretty much a wash for me with the same outcome; I owe.

Ok..but that's you. Just explaining why people in general were nervous.

 

[NYCgrrl]

Ok..but that's you. Just explaining why people in general were nervous.

Yes of course and it's me /myself and I responsible for paying my portion of the taxes.
This topic is a tad too close to politics and my personal finances for me to answer any other way.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Yes of course and it's me /myself and I responsible for paying my portion of the taxes.
This topic is a tad too close to politics and my personal finances for me to answer any other way.

Uhh ok you're the one who chimed into the thread

 

[NYCgrrl]

Uhh ok you're the one who chimed into the thread

Yes I did and I answered in a manner consistent with the thread's title and my learned thoughts when "speaking" online. Keep in mind I don't do Facebook as I feel it's too much of "me" out there; to each their own and more power to everybody.

 

[a1tinkfans]

Answered earlier not nervous.
And I’m THRILLED after filing. I got an 85%
INCREASE in my Crumbs...
If people don’t want their crumbs, please donate .. there’s great charities out there.

 

[havaneselover]

Answered earlier not nervous.
And I’m THRILLED after filing. I got an 85%
INCREASE in my Crumbs...
If people don’t want their crumbs, please donate .. there’s great charities out there.

I'd love to but didn't get any!

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Yes I did and I answered in a manner consistent with the thread's title and my learned thoughts when "speaking" online. Keep in mind I don't do Facebook as I feel it's too much of "me" out there; to each their own and more power to everybody.

okie dokie

 

[Toolulu22]

Not sure why folks are so hung up on a smaller refund. Was your TOTAL tax more or less than last year even with the higher income ?

Not hung up on the smaller refund, I said it was okay- we get more in our paychecks each week....and yes, our total tax was higher- we made significantly more money. I get how it works.

 

[LongLiveRafiki]

Curious what you use to calculate your effective tax rate. I keep seeing different definitions. Do you use just your taxable income or your total income? Do you use total taxes owed or include the credits in there? I see one definition that says use new line 15. There are credits both before and after this line, so it is very confusing to me.

Mine is calculated out on the Turbo Tax program for me, but it's total tax (after all credits) divided by Adjusted Gross Income. Most people can calculate that using line 15/ line 7. For ours, our line 15 (total tax owed) was 0, and we had additional credits in line 17, which dropped our total tax below 0 and meant that overall we were getting back due to credits more than we owed. So to figure out mine, I had to take line 17 and change it to a negative, then divide that by line 7. That gave me the same effective tax rate as what Turbo Tax calculated. Hopefully that makes sense.

 

[Superchikk]

Taxes finally back from the accountant. We were just able to itemize deductions by a couple thousand. I knew it was going to be close. We are paying more tax than last year, but we also made more. Our effective tax rate actually went down.

 

[disney212]

Our tax rate was up but we figured it would be so we had adjusted our withholding in early 2018 so we did not owe a huge amount.

 

[Budzooka]

I overestimated the new 199A deduction on flow through income. It is 20% of qualified business income, but subject to several limitations. Knew I was going to owe, but more than I expected.

 

[georgina]

I overestimated the new 199A deduction on flow through income. It is 20% of qualified business income, but subject to several limitations. Knew I was going to owe, but more than I expected.

Interesting you mentioned 199A. I FINALLY got my last 1099's today and one of them lists Section 199A dividends so I'm looking that up now! I'm guessing that was the holdup on them getting these forms out....And the IRS hasn't gotten around to updating publication 550 yet for 2018 so I'm still searching for where to report these. Ugh

Apparently it is a business income deduction. Yay a new form for me to do! I am definitely selling this investment.

Rough calculation looks like our effective tax rate is the same as last year. If I hadn't done some IRA conversion to Roth, it would have been 0. We decided it was better to take the hit now than in the future.

 

[Budzooka]

Interesting you mentioned 199A. I FINALLY got my last 1099's today and one of them lists Section 199A dividends so I'm looking that up now! I'm guessing that was the holdup on them getting these forms out....And the IRS hasn't gotten around to updating publication 550 yet for 2018 so I'm still searching for where to report these. Ugh

Apparently it is a business income deduction. Yay a new form for me to do! I am definitely selling this investment

199A is a business deduction and only applies to Qualified Business Income. Passive income doesn’t count as QBI, so don’t think you should have to report if it was from dividend income.