Did YOU give Uncle Sam an "interest free loan" in 2005?

[Free4Life11]

So fess up...

 

[ChrisnSteph]

I could care less about the whole "interest free loan" and government thing. We should be getting around $8000 back, and that's more than we would have saved on our own. We aren't disciplined enough with our money and I know nothing about investing, so I'm just happy to getting anything back.

 

[Free4Life11]

I'll be getting around $500 this year! Owed my first year and vowed to get a refund every year after that.

 

[N.Bailey]

I didn't run the numbers yet, but I expect we'll get back slightly under 7 grand. I know it's stupid to not invest the money, but I love getting the checks!! Hubby works TONS of overtime and that is just taxed at a higher rate.

This year's refund will buy my son a nice used car (he turns 16 in November) and next years will buy my daughter one (she'll turn 16 in Dec. '07).

 

[MagicKingdom05]

I like doing this for a couple of reasons. 1. You don't need to worry that you didn't pay enough and 2. It is always nice to get that nice return back.

 

[DawnCt1]

We always have to pay and in fact, just sent a check in to avoid any penalty (hopefully) but I have to say, even though I know that the money is UNCLE SAM'S, once its in my account, I do suffer from acute cash withdrawal. It is painful to write that check. Getting a refund just hides the pain however of making an interest free loan to the government. I just wish I could have my cake and eat it too.

 

[barkley]

i'm hoping i loaned him a least a little. we got a major refund last year because of not being quite sure how to file on a new income source. i drasticly changed it for this year in hopes of finding a happy medium.

i would much rather not have much of anything come back and be able to sock it away into my dh's tax deferred savings accnt (thereby lowering our tax liability even more ).

i don't know how it works in other states, but in california-unless you instruct your payroll to use different filing status' for the feds and the states, you will always end up getting from one and paying the other.

 

[WatchinCaptKangaroo]

Is your Fed Income and SS tax combined into the total or can you only over pay in federal income tax? When I was using the IRS Income tax caculator I added up both my fed and ss taxes paid but I'm thinking that was wrong. If I did it right I'll be getting $6k back. If not I'll be getting about $500.

 

[Free4Life11]

Nope, don't add in your SS taxes. Only your federal income taxes can be under or overpaid. SS is just a flat tax, I think it's aroudn 6 or 7%.

 

[DVC-Don]

Nope. We always owe a couple hundred to both state and federal. I'd rather it that way.

 

[Lisa F]

I think we might have gotten our withholding correct this year for the first time in a very long time. Last year we got nearly $6k back from the feds and the state and it was too much! We upped our withholding but then I worked for the last 2.5 months of the year also and only claimed 0 (we need to readjust everything for next year yet AGAIN will probably increase DH's withholding and leave mine at 0 rather than taking additional money out of my paycheck to cover the higher tax rate). This year we won't mind paying a bit if we have to as our bank account is higher than it's been in a couple of years (i've been in grad school and right now we are just enjoying looking at the high balance after being so tight for so long) but eventually we're going to have to figure out what the heck to do with it. Ugh, I wish it were easier to predict your tax bill because I'd be happy to just pay the appropriate amount and call it a day!

For those who say "oh we NEVER could save" if you use direct deposit you can generally have them funnel some portion of your paycheck to a savings account automatically so that your regular direct deposit is the same. Just forget that the savings account is there until tax time when you have to claim the interest as income . Seriously, I never understood the argument that it's too hard to save the money and you'd rather the gov't do it for you when most payrolls make it really easy for you to not see a bit of difference in your paycheck except if you have an emergency in the middle of june, you'll have a nice little $4k nest egg accessible NOW rather than nothing and waiting for your big refund check.

 

[MUFFYCAT]

We usually break even, going $200 either way. I like it better that way.

 

[Nancy]

I voted as a HMMMM? because right now I have no clue what we are getting or not getting. Some years we have paid, others we have broke even and others we have received large refunds. I usually don't know until mid February what we will be doing.

 

[Colleen456]

Last year was the first time we got a "big" refund. It was around $1200 and it was only because DD was born on December 23. Usually between fed and state we get $500 or less.

 

[DawnCt1]

Is your Fed Income and SS tax combined into the total or can you only over pay in federal income tax? When I was using the IRS Income tax caculator I added up both my fed and ss taxes paid but I'm thinking that was wrong. If I did it right I'll be getting $6k back. If not I'll be getting about $500.

You can easily over pay your SS if you have more than one job. If not, your employer takes out the right amount and stops taking it out when you hit the max.

 

[mickeyfan2]

I just prefer to owe nothing and get nothing back. But that just never seems to happen. Also if you owe too much, then you will pay penalties, so a refund is better than penalties.

 

[kbkids]

We usually get back around $3000. I don't know any way around it. Any hints from here? There's four of us. DH makes the bulk of the money. I work part-time with self-employed income (really, not much - but enough that I pay taxes on it). And we're claiming Married and 4. DH just has a lot of deductions through his job (travels on a daily basis), child deductions, mortgage interest, etc.

 

[mickeyfan2]

Nope, don't add in your SS taxes. Only your federal income taxes can be under or overpaid. SS is just a flat tax, I think it's aroudn 6 or 7%.

Actually you can overpay on SS if you change jobs in the same year. Say you work a job long enought to max out the SS and then change jobs. The new employer is required to take out SS on the income you get from the. So you would have overpaid, but this will not happen to most tax payers.

 

[mickeyfan2]

We usually get back around $3000. I don't know any way around it. Any hints from here? There's four of us. DH makes the bulk of the money. I work part-time with self-employed income (really, not much - but enough that I pay taxes on it). And we're claiming Married and 4. DH just has a lot of deductions through his job (travels on a daily basis), child deductions, mortgage interest, etc.

He could change it to married claiming 3. This would result in more taxes being taken out.

If you owe a lot then you would do married claiming 5.

 

[pixiemomma]

We do not (we are self-employed and usually pay in) but I don't think there is anything wrong with doing so. Although when you look at 10000 over 52 weeks it is a significant amount.