Annoyed in Ohio

[scovik88]

What is the name of your state? Ohio
I would like to know why we ALWAYS owe taxes at then end of the year. My wife and I both claim 0 exemptions on our W-4 and I even have an extra $60 a paycheck taken out. This year we grossed $60,000 and our AGI was 43,000. My wife gets really upset when she hears of our friends getting $2500 back or more and we still have to pay. What are we doing wrong?

[TinkerBelleLuvr]

Technically, your friends are all giving the government an interest-free loan.

You may want to prevail yourself of the IRS withholding calculator since you both work.

http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=96196,00.html

[scovik88]

Yea I know and I tried to explain that to my wife and she understood but it would be nice to get a big check back for once.

[LdiJ]

Originally Posted by scovik88

Yea I know and I tried to explain that to my wife and she understood but it would be nice to get a big check back for once.

At your joint income level, any "big check" would simply be a trade off between money available paycheck to paycheck, vs money paid into a non interest bearing "savings account" that you got back at the end of the year.

However, that is assuming that the two of you treat all of your income as "joint".

If the two of you keep everything separate and your wife's paycheck takes a bigger hit than yours does taxwise, then she might have a valid gripe.

[VeronicaLodge]

ginny, for some reason that calculator is currently unavailable and has been for a couple of days just fyi.

[scovik88]

Originally Posted by LdiJ

At your joint income level, any "big check" would simply be a trade off between money available paycheck to paycheck, vs money paid into a non interest bearing "savings account" that you got back at the end of the year.

However, that is assuming that the two of you treat all of your income as "joint".

If the two of you keep everything separate and your wife's paycheck takes a bigger hit than yours does taxwise, then she might have a valid gripe.

Thanks,
I tried both the joint and separate senarios and I would have to pay like $2400 so I did not even try hers as separate.

Tell me this: I had a tax attorney tell me once that we should put back 10% of our GROSS earnings for Fed tax. If this is true then combined we had about 9.5% put back, or I should say,taken out of our checks. But this was with 0 exemptions and we still owe $69. I just don't understand how we hear of people geting back 3-4 Thousand dollars? I mean how much would they have to put back???