Who do I blame for a sh!tty tax return?

[djjerme]

Well your not owing, and you overpaid very little, this is by definition doing it right..... You are keeping nearly the maximum amount of your own money to do with as you see fit during the year and not loaning to the govt interest free for 12 months. If I had a "normal job" 9-5 50 weeks a year, I would prefer to owe a few hundred at the end of the year for the reasons I have laid out above.

Getting married effectively doubles your exemptions, if you still paid taxes like you were single then you should be over paid

Sleeves gets it..

[flyboyx]

my first year of marriage, we had to file married filing separately due to our incomes. we also got fucked on the return. when i was single, i was able to take advantage of about 25k in claimed losses from rentals every year. pretty much no such thing as exemptions when using that category to file. i guess they figure you are using that filing to hide income or stay below a certain income bracket, thus you are penalized for it.

while we are at it, i blame obama.....and rob.

[MR E30 325is]

djjerme and sleeve understand. Who likes to lend somebody money and receive no interest on that money in return? It is important to understand that no one is going to manage your money as well as you will, if you are properly educated. Pay as little in taxes as you possibly can.

Tax law is absurdly complex, and changes what seems like everyday.

Tax efficiency is important for anyone, especially investors and business people.

For me, one of the biggest upsides in owning rental real estate when it comes to tax time is a phenomenon called depreciation. Basically, the IRS says that for residential real estate, in 27.5 years the house you own will be worth nothing. So you get to write off roughly 3.63 % of the value of your home (minus the dirt it sits on, as dirt will always be there, and therefore does not depreciate).

In short, own enough homes and your taxable income drops to nothing. Say hello to 15-20k checks from old Uncle Sam. He'll fuck ya when you try to sell the property that has allowed you to pay no income tax, but there are ways around that too.

[nrubenstein]

Married filing separately is usually a very unfavorable way to file. You lose a lot of deductions vs. being single, and don't get any of the advantages of being married.

I can't speak to your specific circumstance, but that was my experience. My wife and I filed separately for a year because our finances are complicated and we didn't have the time to deal with it, but filing separately cost us thousands each.

Edit: Given your wife's student loan, the basic answer is that you need to evaluate the cost vs. benefit. More deductions with higher payment vs. less deduction and a lower payment. Maybe it comes out in a wash? Also look at the payback timeline - is the goal to make payments until the loan is forgiven? Or pay it off? A higher payment isn't necessarily that bad if you want to pay it off.

[M-technik-3]

I work roughly 3/4 of the year tax free due to war zones so taxable income is nearly zilch.

We itemize and donate and pay attention to our business aka rental property. We write of mileage that we drive to do maintenance and so forth at the place. Plus we track expenditures and deduct dedicated office space my wife and I share for or LLC. We used to have a tax attorney do all of our taxes but now we just do them ourselves.

[BraveUlysses]

Did you already hit the button to file? If you're using software you should be able to look at the numbers with filing separately and then look at the numbers for joint and decide which works best for you.

[Jorgen]

Did you already hit the button to file? If you're using software you should be able to look at the numbers with filing separately and then look at the numbers for joint and decide which works best for you.

Seeing how much more you get back filing jointly and see if its worth it to take that and plow it into the loans to makeup for the difference in the new payment.

But don't feel bad I got married too and our total refund went down about $2k from what it was last year. Would have been even worse filing separate.

[rcsoundn1]

last year I owed 5k STFU

[Matt-B]

I am getting 14$ back...

Id be happy with 250$...

[mrsleeve]

Why does everyone think of their tax return is somehow "free money" it's your money you earned you gave to someone else for a year that they are getting around to giving back. Would you be pissed off if you over payed home Depot for a bunch of shit, and they waited a year to refund you your overpayment.....

With how my work situation is set up, I am taxed at a much much higher rate every week due to my earning potential, but I don't generally work 52 weeks a year so my income is lower than the bracket I pay at when working. So my refunds are fairly large, and in my situation I prefer it, as to not get a tax bill in the traditionally slow winter season. Hence why I said earlier if I had a normal job. For only working 2 months last year and having an ok income stream from other than work sources and paying taxes on my w2 income alone I am still getting a return from the feds which more than covers the 2-300 I owe the state

All that said the year we got married our fedreal refund was nearly 15k

[Kershaw]

Have some kids.

Daddy's little tax return.

I don't think having kids costs less money than the deductions you get. That's why the deductions are there in the first place.

More like Daddy's little money pit.

[GDA]

Please take this in a positive manner....

Long time Big 4 CPA here and I continue to be amazed that one of the largest outgoing expenses for most individuals is their federal and state income taxes; and, given that premise, most people should be highly motivated to really know their shit when it comes to squeezing every dollar that goes out the door from their gross income. Very few people take control and quite often it sure sounds like they are in complete reactionary mode when it is already too late to change the game [cash basis taxpayer and you are now evaluating your options/preliminary answer and you are in the next year so you are SOL to change the answer anyway].

So my advice is to start reading up, buy TurboTax and get in front of your draft return every Sept / October so you can make choices with your funds/activities and then scenario model your return to get the answer you desire as you approach 12/31 that year end.

Also, a year old Master Tax Guide for some light bathroom reading could end up providing big savings when you start buying homes, rental properties and or own your own business.

[straight6pwr]

10% increase in pay.
Government took $750 more from you.
I'm guessing this is pretty close to a 10% increase in taxes, if you did the math.

How to avoid the B.S.? Just accept it and it will stop stressing you.

Besides, any advise people will give you on how to your lower taxes always involves spending more money which is counter-productive. Buy real estate, have kids, start a business, give stuff to charity....blah blah

[Exodus_2pt0]

I don't think having kids costs less money than the deductions you get. That's why the deductions are there in the first place.

More like Daddy's little money pit.

That wasn't intended to be taken seriously.

That said, my kids don't cost me much at all.... Yet.

[nando]

wait until they eat more food than you and your wife. Yeesh.

personally, I try to lower my taxable income as much as possible - my HSA and some other things are pre-tax, and I'm currently sitting at 10% of my wages going to my 401k. Then I itemize as much as possible, although my writeoffs have been shrinking lately.

But getting a huge refund shouldn't be the goal, as others have said, it's your money in the first place - you're not getting it for free. I like to err on the side of a small refund, rather than having to pay though.