Decorating & Renovating
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: F/U Clicky Poll: Tax refunds
None.
We had to pay. You should put that spectrum on there, lol.
my read shelf:
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home D
Hey, I can only make polls so fast. LOL Check for the other one ..
I've been entering just federal for myself. But as a highly unscientific poll, feel free to do whatever works for you.
TTC Baby #2 - BFP on 12/14/11 @ 10DPO - CP confirmed 12/18/11
BFP #2 on 1/13/12
Why don't you just have money direct deposited into a savings account where you can earn interest instead of letting the gov't hold that money interest free?
Because it's our choice. I know more MM people don't agree with it but it's easiest for us, especially since if it's in a savings account we can access, it could be used and then if we end up owing money at the end of the year, we'd be boned. We can only budget for so much crap to happen in one year. (This year, we had a new roof, $300 in heater repairs because of the roof, invested $500 in a car we ended up having to replace anyways, plus about $1,000 so far into the house we're trying to get out of.)
TTC Baby #2 - BFP on 12/14/11 @ 10DPO - CP confirmed 12/18/11
BFP #2 on 1/13/12
22% of people get more than $5000????!!
I am living in an alternate universe!
Holy cow! For the record, not me lol.
TTC Baby #2 - BFP on 12/14/11 @ 10DPO - CP confirmed 12/18/11
BFP #2 on 1/13/12
We got a super huge chunk (way north of the highest on this poll) back this year for two reasons:
1. We had a ton of deductions. The biggest ones were childcare and learning credit since DH is in grad school.
2. I once got burned by an employer not taking enough out and I've vowed never to let it happen again. Both DH and I claim 0 dependents, even though we have little ones. I realize this isn't the smartest move, but I also understand how much it sucked to have a huge tax bill we had to struggle for months to pay.
Ugh. We're getting $145 back from federal and owe $97 state.
We'd always heard people talk about the huge tax refunds they got when they bought a house that we were expecting one too. Nope. Guess you have to have kids for that.
This is really good! This means you didn't have the government holding onto your money throughout the year and you had it in savings. The closer to net zero you are the better. Those who are getting $5000 back really need to evaluate how much you are letting them take out of your check!
This except ours is because we own 2 rental properties and have been doing work on them. We live in one of the rentals so any outside improvements and some utilities count 50% towards the rental units.
I was kind of bummed we're only getting like $300 back, but then was thinking the same thing. I'd rather have a little more throughout the year than to pay in more and get a lump sum back this time of year. This is the closest we've ever cut it to $0 so will probably stick with the same deductions for next/this year.
This is us too. I would rather be able to splurge a little. We do have a savings accounts but once we built it up something happens....like a car deductible for hitting a deer.
This is us also. Way north of the $5k. It's because of DH's profession, me being a SAHM, and our deductions. We also claim O with dependents. We'd rather have the money now, because it will just get spent on frivalous things during the year.
DS - 7.2006 - C-Section b/c Breech
DS2 - 4.2008 - Successful Vbac
DD - 5.2012 - Successful Vbac
I'm curious about this. If you have to pay a car deductible for hitting a deer, then wouldn't it be better that your savings has enough to pay the deductible and still have money leftover?
I see people are worried that it would get spent on frivilous things throughout the year. If that's the concern then make it a goal to save that money to put it into somethign like a CD that you can't touch. If you want to splurge once a year and you want it to around april 15th, set aside money to do that.
I'm not trying to make this a debate. It took me a few years after becoming part of the workforce to wrap my head around this. I used to love my big return, but it's not worth losing the interest on that money.
ETA: FWIW, I do not frequent the MM board, but it sounds like I should.
We over-withhold in order guarantee no under-payment penalties. That usually results in a somewhat large refund for us each year, though sometimes we owe more. Because DH's bonus swings wildly each year (his annual bonus can be very little to more than my annual full-time salary, which always makes for an exciting March), we have a difficult time predicting our tax liability sometimes. It's easier to just stay in the safe harbor.
If my savings account was earning more than 1%, I might worry more about the gov't keeping my money "for free." There are calculators for estimating liability, but I'm always afraid I'll forget to account for something. With interest like it is, I'd rather lose $30 in annual interest than pay IRS penalties.
I'm not necessarily worried about frivilous things as penalties for not having taken enough out and having to pay a lump sum in. We have savings, but we have to keep $500 in for auto deductibles (required by our CU for our auto loan), plus our interest on our savings is not that high, so we're not losing much by not having it in savings instead. Honeslty, I haven't looked into a CD but I wouldn't be surprised if our tiny CU didn't have any options past checking, savings and loans (I can't cash savings bonds).
My H and my MIL are both pretty money saavy and I honestly don't care either way what they do w/r/t our taxes, as long as they get paid. We both trust my MIL to make the best decision in our interest. (Otherwise, she's the person we turn to when we are essentially effed re: having to pay bills we didn't expect -- like emergency surgeries. Have I mentioned that she is pretty much the best person ever? She is.)
TTC Baby #2 - BFP on 12/14/11 @ 10DPO - CP confirmed 12/18/11
BFP #2 on 1/13/12
Oh I know. It's just this is the first year we've had the house and after hearing everyone else's stories, we were expecting a bit of a windfall.