Is anyone owing money in taxes?

^^^if you do choose to go with a free software program such as taxhawk-I use a different one and have kept with them since 2004/2005, I learned yesterday if you go to their site through the IRS-who will give you an extensive list if under 66K or over 66K, but under 66K is free and the IRS expressly states that on their site and expressly states which states are mandated to offer free electronic filing- but if you go through the IRS to these sites-it will attach Free to your filing status.
These sites are great they walk you through it, self explanatory and do a free review with alerts so that your risk of error is slim to none.

To add. It does look like more than last year, for me. For me it can get tricky to monitor because of floating one of my sons alternating years with my exh. Last year I filed for 3 since he had zero on the book wages for the first time in his work history. And there's the internal job change back in fall of '17 which was a wage increase=more taxes paid. And this year the DOR is pushing all of my exes refund my way for back pay on child support.
Either way, I'm not in the category of being negatively affected by tax reform.

We did our taxes today and we are getting back just a tiny bit less than last year. It’s because we made a bit more. But we made it up by paying less for HRblock service (she explained why but I honestly wasn’t listening at that point). So we didn’t get effected really. Good news for us as a refund is substantial

I don’t think you understand how taxes work. If you only made 11k and deduction is 12k you can’t possibly owe anything

Ok. Well maybe I don’t know how they work. My W2 says I paid $800 in taxes last year. I thought it was like the lottery and if I made $11,000 then about $3,500 would have been taken out for taxes. Not just $800.

No....even what you are thinking is not how it works. Your W2 indicates how much was withheld from your check to cover taxes you may owe at the end of the year. It is NOT how much you OWE in taxes. As a matter of fact if you only earned $11,000 you probably owe no taxes unless you have some other income you get. Basically when your taxes are calculated for 2018, the government will have to repay you what you overpaid (maybe the whole $800)

Right... so here's my understanding.

The $12k personal exemption means that, for people who qualify for that (i.e. single, not claimed by someone else) - you do not pay taxes on the first $12k of income you earn in a year.

So, if you were to earn $20,000... when you do your taxes, there's actually a step on the form where you'd subtract out the $12,000 exemption. (It's an "exemption" because that part of your income is *exempt* from having to pay taxes, i.e. it's tax-free, and you don't pay anything for that first $12k.)

So in that case, you'd earn $20,000. Then you get the exemption, and subtract that out... so $20,000 - $12,000 = $8,000 - that's what you'd owe taxes on. In the old days, you'd have to look at a paper booklet that shows you what the tax rate is for $8000 of income, but now the computer does it.

Since you made $11,000, if you were doing it yourself, you'd see that there's a step where you subtract the exemption, so $11,000 - $12,000 (exemption), and get a negative number (-$1000). That means that none of your income is subject to tax.

In that case, if you've had any taxes taken out of your paycheck, you should get a refund of all that money. If they took out less money this year than less year, you may get less back, because you will only get back the money that you paid.

It's like this...

Your employer has to make an educated guess at what you're going to owe in taxes at the end of the year. You can influence this a little when you fill out the form (when you're hired) that talks about how many exemptions, etc, you have.

But, your employer makes their best guess, based on your salary and the form you filled out. Then, they take out enough money every month (and send it to the government for you) to pay that tax bill.

In a perfect world, that number would be correct - and you wouldn't owe anything more or get a refund. But because the tax law is so crazy, it's almost never going to be spot-on. So, when you actually file your taxes, the government looks at what you owe, based on everything: your income, your exemptions, anything that comes in to play.. and what you've already paid.

If you've paid more than you owe, you get a refund!

If you didn't pay enough, you have to make up the difference.

If you made $11k, and if you qualify for the standard exemption (single, nobody else can claim you as a dependent) - you won't owe anything, b/c your income is less than the exemption. So, anything you've already paid (from your job taking it out of your paycheck) will come back to you.

Note: this doesn't include money that your job took for other things, like social security, medicaid, local taxes, etc. Just the federal taxes.

It's going to be OK! Really, don't worry... and as I said, if you go to one of the online tools, you can actually fill in all the fields and get a better idea of how it works. The ones I've looked at are all free to put in your info and see the outcome, and because your taxes are pretty simple, they shouldn't take too long.

*hugs*

How and why government would take $3500 in taxes from someone who only made 11000? No taxes don’t work as a lottery. You likely will get all at least part of your taxes back as you don’t make enough

Good for you by the way keeping part time job while on disability. It’s commendable. Just stop worrying about taxes

Payroll taxes are much different than lottery taxes by far. I can comprehend why that might be in your thoughts.
Payroll taxes are spelled out in brackets. Your payroll coordinator would plug in a code for an estimated yearly amount to gauge how much of a percentage to withhold from your paycheck. With state taxes, it's the same method. I know that my state tax operates on a 5.1% margin with an elective of 5.85% for instance.
800 of 11K is 7.27%.

Lottery is around that 35% ratio.

There’s a lot more talk on the news. A lot more people are saying they are owing this year. Others are saying they are not. But I did find out today you can create a payment plan. So if someone did owe $10,000 (I’m not saying that I will) they won’t expect you to pay the whole amount back at one time. I thought you had to pay it all back at one time. That makes me feel better.

If you owe a lot you can pay in installments but they’d charge you interest.

People owe when they for example work two jobs, have no dependents and make substantial amount of money

So I looked at some past paychecks from 2018, and it looks like on the lower checks I’ve gotten they haven’t been taking any federal taxes out. Zero. I’m pretty sure that’s an issue. I will know if I’ll owe anything in about 5 hours. I’ll keep you guys posted.

No it’s not an issue!

They take NOTHING out of low pay check because you don’t make enough. How can you owe anything if you only make 11k??? I don’t think you understand what everyone is telling you.

Many people already explained to you that if you make less than 12k a year you don’t pay any taxes and whatever you paid will be returned to you. It’s becayse you make less than exemption of 12k.

People who make less than 12k pay ZERO taxes. Not sure why you keep repeating same thing? It’s like you don’t read people’s posts?

I’m sorry. I truly don’t. They were taking a lot of money out for federal taxes and then they just stopped taking it out for the lower taxes in January 2018. My check yesterday didn’t have any federal taxes taken out either. But at one time a lot of money was taken out. This is something recent.

It doesn’t matter. If they took taxes then money will be returned to you. If you paid no taxes you simply owe nothing. You don’t make enough to pay any kind of taxes.

People who make that little don’t pay taxes. End of story. Whatever they took out, they’ll give back to you. I don’t know how else to explain it. You made too little. People who make that little don’t pay taxes

The money they take out of checks for federal income tax is NOT THE ACTUAL TAX that you owe. They just take it out during the year because people were coming up short at the end of the tax year & didn't have money to pay taxes so the IRS chose to take deductions out monthly to make sure they got their money. If too much was deducted for taxes during the year the person gets a refund, if not enough, the person comes up with the rest.

Incomes under a certain amount (think $25,000) are not subject to owing taxes. You fall under that category.

I don't think that the zero tax is supposed to begin with your weekly pay. I'd contact whoever handles your payroll and adjust your W4s.
But you did mention an amount was listed on your W2, so something must have been withheld.
Just plug it into the free sites and put your mind at ease.
It walks you through numbered box by numbered box.

Wow! You know you stuff! Pretty sure I’ll break even or possibly owe a bit.

We usually break even but last year we did owe for the first time... I expect we might owe a little bit again this year.

I’m sorry. You guys are right. I’m getting everything back. I just get really bad anxiety when I hear stuff like this and I need constant reassurance from people multiple times even if they tell me it’s ok or I’m worrying for nothing. Sorry for being so annoying.

Plus when I mentioned it to my manager a year ago he had said I would have to pay back the taxes. But he was obviously wrong.

Not this year i got a little bit back. Both me and my husband are on low income right now

It would be ideal if I could get my income tax threshold down from 40%. The UK's taxes are appalling!