Tax Time
Last night I sat down and started filing our taxes for this year. For the past 3 years, I have used TurboTax for the web. I don't really like the user interface, which hasn't changed this year, and it is hard to navigate, but since they have all my personal information (names, addresses, SS#s, etc.) it is just easier. We don't have anything fancy, like stock losses or capital gains that are outside of our IRA accounts, so its mostly just income and mortgage interest deductions.
We always have to pay at the end of the year because my wife moonlights at another hospital for extra money. And that money is withheld as if it were her only job, so the federal withholding is only like 10%, when it should be closer to 30%. Also this year, I have income from a second job: I was a mortgage broker on the side, but only did a few loans before I lost interest, because I didn't really have the time at my "real" job to be dealing with rates and titles and credit scores, etc.
So after I collect all the W-2s and put the income part into Turbo Tax, there is a shocking number next to the "Tax Due" line, which gradually gets eaten away by adding mortgage interest deductions, real estate taxes paid and estimated taxes paid. So this year after contributing to our respective IRAs we still will have to shell out about $2 grand. Bummer. But we do owe it, so we were just livin' larger during the year. Once again, I probably should have sent more to the Feds during the year. Maybe next time.
Bottom line: We made about 1.5% more than last year (which surprised me) and paid about 9% less in taxes. Thanks George W.
Last night I sat down and started filing our taxes for this year. For the past 3 years, I have used TurboTax for the web. I don't really like the user interface, which hasn't changed this year, and it is hard to navigate, but since they have all my personal information (names, addresses, SS#s, etc.) it is just easier. We don't have anything fancy, like stock losses or capital gains that are outside of our IRA accounts, so its mostly just income and mortgage interest deductions.
We always have to pay at the end of the year because my wife moonlights at another hospital for extra money. And that money is withheld as if it were her only job, so the federal withholding is only like 10%, when it should be closer to 30%. Also this year, I have income from a second job: I was a mortgage broker on the side, but only did a few loans before I lost interest, because I didn't really have the time at my "real" job to be dealing with rates and titles and credit scores, etc.
So after I collect all the W-2s and put the income part into Turbo Tax, there is a shocking number next to the "Tax Due" line, which gradually gets eaten away by adding mortgage interest deductions, real estate taxes paid and estimated taxes paid. So this year after contributing to our respective IRAs we still will have to shell out about $2 grand. Bummer. But we do owe it, so we were just livin' larger during the year. Once again, I probably should have sent more to the Feds during the year. Maybe next time.
Bottom line: We made about 1.5% more than last year (which surprised me) and paid about 9% less in taxes. Thanks George W.
