MAC
01-19-2004, 03:17 AM
well....my boss did an amazing thing this year
he gave us our W-2 with our first paycheck.
(for all you foreigners: the W-2 is the federal end of the year summary of pay and tax for wages earned if you're not self employed)
the deadline to get W-2's out is Jan 30 and usually he doesn't get them ready before then so he mails them to us from the post office just to have receipts proving that he made the deadline.
but this year he was ready.
Now, keep in mind that I am in the lowest tax bracket and it easy to do them. Most of my 1040 is blank.
I have no taxable income except what I get at work and no deductions except the standards (my interest paid on my house could be itemized but its usually less than the standard deduction so there's no point.)
So I take my wages and add nothing to it to get my adjusted gross income.
Then I subtract the standard deduction for being single
then I subtract the exemptions for the number of dependants I have
(that = 1, I am 1 deduction, that's it.)
this results in my taxable income
I have no dividends, capital gains, IRA distributions, pensions, annuities, unemployment compensation, or social security benefits to add
and I have no education expensies, IRA deductions, student loan interest tuition or fees to deduct
I'm not over 65 or blind, I'm not married and no one can claim me as a dependant
so once I have figured out how much of what I earned I must pay tax on I go to figure my tax on the chart.
I do not qualify for the alternative minimum tax, child and dependant care, elderly and disabled credit, education credit, retirement/savings credit, child tax credit, or adoption credit ....so I have no tax credits
so what they withheld is what I have paid in.
well.....they withheld about 5-1/2%
that's almost HALF of what SHOULD have been with held
now I owe uncle sam almost what I paid in.
my boss's accountant is a sharp guy who has too much business and he left to go back to work for a real company last year leaving his father with th ebusiness. He had to come back half way through the year to try to fix things his dad had done wrong
this must have slipped through the cracks
I am betting anything that what happened was that when I got divorced and fille dout a new W-4 (that's the form where you tell your employer how many deductiosn to allow for your withholding) that they simply ADDED the new one to the old one.
regardless the boss will have a chance to straighten this out and I will see what my W-4 says.
I will file a NEW W-4 for this year and make them correct my 2 paychecks that have been issued.
the sad thing is that this past year was a steady climber, pay-wise. It started off weak like 2002, and got better. There where a few spikes in pay when we where busy and I had overtime and few valleys where things dryed up, but it finished off so strong....
now I see that I should knock about $65 off each check to get an idea of what I really made.
every year since I got a life and the subsequent bills I've learned more about budgeting. This year I felt like I really had a handle on my incoem and what I needed to do with it. This fucks up my spreadsheet real good. Time to cut some more fat.
please note:
If I had received my whole check each week and put the 10% in a savings account I could send them acheck for the whole ammount and had the little bit that was left plus the tiny interest it had earned but it'd be enough for a road trip or a plane ticket to see my daughter or something.
I should inform my boss that this is what I want to do but I won't.
I fore see enough shit on the horizon already to make me avoid that stress.
which is why nothing changes
he gave us our W-2 with our first paycheck.
(for all you foreigners: the W-2 is the federal end of the year summary of pay and tax for wages earned if you're not self employed)
the deadline to get W-2's out is Jan 30 and usually he doesn't get them ready before then so he mails them to us from the post office just to have receipts proving that he made the deadline.
but this year he was ready.
Now, keep in mind that I am in the lowest tax bracket and it easy to do them. Most of my 1040 is blank.
I have no taxable income except what I get at work and no deductions except the standards (my interest paid on my house could be itemized but its usually less than the standard deduction so there's no point.)
So I take my wages and add nothing to it to get my adjusted gross income.
Then I subtract the standard deduction for being single
then I subtract the exemptions for the number of dependants I have
(that = 1, I am 1 deduction, that's it.)
this results in my taxable income
I have no dividends, capital gains, IRA distributions, pensions, annuities, unemployment compensation, or social security benefits to add
and I have no education expensies, IRA deductions, student loan interest tuition or fees to deduct
I'm not over 65 or blind, I'm not married and no one can claim me as a dependant
so once I have figured out how much of what I earned I must pay tax on I go to figure my tax on the chart.
I do not qualify for the alternative minimum tax, child and dependant care, elderly and disabled credit, education credit, retirement/savings credit, child tax credit, or adoption credit ....so I have no tax credits
so what they withheld is what I have paid in.
well.....they withheld about 5-1/2%
that's almost HALF of what SHOULD have been with held
now I owe uncle sam almost what I paid in.
my boss's accountant is a sharp guy who has too much business and he left to go back to work for a real company last year leaving his father with th ebusiness. He had to come back half way through the year to try to fix things his dad had done wrong
this must have slipped through the cracks
I am betting anything that what happened was that when I got divorced and fille dout a new W-4 (that's the form where you tell your employer how many deductiosn to allow for your withholding) that they simply ADDED the new one to the old one.
regardless the boss will have a chance to straighten this out and I will see what my W-4 says.
I will file a NEW W-4 for this year and make them correct my 2 paychecks that have been issued.
the sad thing is that this past year was a steady climber, pay-wise. It started off weak like 2002, and got better. There where a few spikes in pay when we where busy and I had overtime and few valleys where things dryed up, but it finished off so strong....
now I see that I should knock about $65 off each check to get an idea of what I really made.
every year since I got a life and the subsequent bills I've learned more about budgeting. This year I felt like I really had a handle on my incoem and what I needed to do with it. This fucks up my spreadsheet real good. Time to cut some more fat.
please note:
If I had received my whole check each week and put the 10% in a savings account I could send them acheck for the whole ammount and had the little bit that was left plus the tiny interest it had earned but it'd be enough for a road trip or a plane ticket to see my daughter or something.
I should inform my boss that this is what I want to do but I won't.
I fore see enough shit on the horizon already to make me avoid that stress.
which is why nothing changes