4 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

You seriously expect that most people here did? 

No but some may have read interpretations of the law.

4 minutes ago, NorthSideSox72 said:

I mean let's be honest, NO ONE reads the full text of the laws, including the people who vote on it in Congress.

 

Which is why its hard to fault regular people for not understanding that they werent getting a refund now. 

Just now, Soxbadger said:

No but some may have read interpretations of the law.

Which is why its hard to fault regular people for not understanding that they werent getting a refund now. 

Didn't you just say "They should have read the fine print", in other words you're faulting regular people for not reading the full tax law? 

1 minute ago, Balta1701 said:

Didn't you just say "They should have read the fine print", in other words you're faulting regular people for not reading the full tax law? 

Sarcasm. Read the first sentence about how thet were purposefully being deceived.

55 minutes ago, Soxbadger said:

One of the issues is they made it seem like the $25 extra per paycheck was on top of their normal return. They should have read the fine print.

That sure wasn't the way it was sold to the American People.  Not that I am surprised the most successful con-man in the history of American politics lied to people, but you get the point.

20 minutes ago, Soxbadger said:

Yep. Most people Congressmen dont read the text of laws.

 

1 hour ago, pettie4sox said:

Basically what I'm seeing is I didn't get a tax cut, as I actually was put in a higher tax bracket...

The little money we got paycheck to paycheck from the "tax cut" was just chewing into the refund.  A true blue tax cut would be to receive that money and get the same refund...  is my thinking flawed here?

First, this is literally how a tax refund works. Second, your tax bracket is linked to your adjusted gross income based on deductions. If your local taxes and mortgage are capped, and you can't itemize deductions, then you might have a higher taxable income this year. So it may not be that your tax bracket is higher, it's that where you are being taxed on more money at the same rate.

Now in the standard deduction, it makes absolutely no sense to require the services of our family accountant. I assume we were always some pretty easy money for them, and have zero clue how much of their business comes from personal returns, but I wonder how many close up shop based on this year.

2 minutes ago, bmags said:

Now in the standard deduction, it makes absolutely no sense to require the services of our family accountant. I assume we were always some pretty easy money for them, and have zero clue how much of their business comes from personal returns, but I wonder how many close up shop based on this year.

Unless you have a pretty complex return, the tax cut/turbo tax software does exactly the same thing at a fraction of the price.

1 minute ago, southsider2k5 said:

Unless you have a pretty complex return, the tax cut/turbo tax software does exactly the same thing at a fraction of the price.

It actually ended up being the same price which is why we still went to them. The federal return is a nice sticker price but the local returns cost on the softwares made it pretty equal and it was nice having a guy to ask about w-4 changes, etc.

1 minute ago, bmags said:

It actually ended up being the same price which is why we still went to them. The federal return is a nice sticker price but the local returns cost on the softwares made it pretty equal and it was nice having a guy to ask about w-4 changes, etc.

I get Tax Cut + State for $35-40 annually.  The best thing about it, is that once you do it one year, it imports all of your historical W2s, 1099's etc, and your personal information.  Your second year, a return takes 10-15 minutes to complete.

3 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

I get Tax Cut + State for $35-40 annually.  The best thing about it, is that once you do it one year, it imports all of your historical W2s, 1099's etc, and your personal information.  Your second year, a return takes 10-15 minutes to complete.

That is much cheaper than what I've experienced with turbotax years ago. That said, youll find this crazy, but I usually had done my tax return personally every year on turbotax then still went to this accountant just to compare the returns and "know what to expect" in case we needed to save up for paying out.

So now I'm just filing online but did get a discount for work for hr block software so I may use that instead.

Can you even deduct your state taxes in Illinois?

 

 

I did the turbotax this year.  I usually go to my dad since he's a CPA but he was charging $175.  I ended up paying $80 for using the software and they imported my w2s.  I'm single with no kids and just had a few jobs so it wasn't that hard in the grand scheme of things.

1 minute ago, bmags said:

That is much cheaper than what I've experienced with turbotax years ago. That said, youll find this crazy, but I usually had done my tax return personally every year on turbotax then still went to this accountant just to compare the returns and "know what to expect" in case we needed to save up for paying out.

So now I'm just filing online but did get a discount for work for hr block software so I may use that instead.

How did it usually work out, out of curiosity?

I have 2 kids and my wife and I both claim single 0. My wife doesn't work the same amount of hours every check so I don't know how the tax withholding changed her take-home pay. My paycheck went up 20 dollars or so per check, but as it relates to the tax return mine went up around $1000 total. I think it was we got more out of the $24,000 standard deduction for married couples vs. doing the itemized deductions. Clearly, not being able to deduct all of the local taxes, with the cap on property taxes and such made a change.

Somehow, I can just imagine Balta taking the time to read some of the new tax bill, at least the part that refers to professional educators and deductible expenses (past tense). 

That and the negative impact on charities due to donations being "less deductible" in terms of meeting their thresholds is another under-reported element of all this.

Just now, southsider2k5 said:

How did it usually work out, out of curiosity?

Obviously similar but did a better job of probing contributions, titles, etc that I missed and was able to get records of. First year was most prominent and was around $250.

Part of it is when you are going through the software deductions I'm just not as literate in what they are always talking about and so he helped me get my act together but now I know the motions/SALT and MIT gone made it very unlikely we'd break past the standard deduction again.

Granted I'm in WI, I saw a little bit more this year on the WI side due to purchasing my first home. Wisconsin essentially makes you pay the majority of the income in the 6.27% bracket, as their brackets are definitely not favorable for anyone that makes more than 29k/yr. Otherwise, I fall just short of itemizing, but I saw about $60/mo more check wise & paid about $1200 less in federal taxes overall.  In turn, I received about $60 less on federal return, albeit I made a bit more, but I went from a marginal tax rate of 24% to 22%, and paid very minimal into 22%, maybe about $4k worth of income after the $12k standard deduction.  I have 1 allowance because I do not like the government playing with my money interest free;  I'll take the extra $70-80/mo now rather than "refunded" aka returned to me at the end of the year.

Edited February 11, 20197 yr by Soxnfins

If Manny Machado signs a deal with the White Sox, he'll be a fan of the new tax laws.   It's the top 1% of earners that are seeing a positive difference.   The other 99% were sold another false bill of goods and are getting royally screwed this year.

16 minutes ago, sin city sox fan said:

If Manny Machado signs a deal with the White Sox, he'll be a fan of the new tax laws.   It's the top 1% of earners that are seeing a positive difference.   The other 99% were sold another false bill of goods and are getting royally screwed this year.

Bah, there was actually a small tax cut for most people this year, everyone else will be really hit in about 3-4 years when the broad based tax increase that was part of the same bill comes up.

2 hours ago, pettie4sox said:

Can you even deduct your state taxes in Illinois?

 

 

You can deduct your state taxes on your federal taxes up to 10,000.

4 hours ago, LittleHurt05 said:

Our problem is we suck at saving money, so I see it as the government being my safety net that provides a yearly 4-5 figure advance.  Interest rates suck nowadays anyway.

This is the problem that most people have. What worked for us was find ways to force it. Have an automatic transfer from checking to savings each month, Get a 529 that is a monthly bill. Things like that which are just incorporating into a bill like structures

16 minutes ago, ptatc said:

This is the problem that most people have. What worked for us was find ways to force it. Have an automatic transfer from checking to savings each month, Get a 529 that is a monthly bill. Things like that which are just incorporating into a bill like structures

If you think about it, having a tax return is just that.  It is a forced saving account.

3 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

If you think about it, having a tax return is just that.  It is a forced saving account.

It is, except someone else is getting the interest on the money not you. If you are going to save you might as well get as much as you can. It's not much each year but if you do it every year for 20 years, it adds up.

8 minutes ago, ptatc said:

It is, except someone else is getting the interest on the money not you. If you are going to save you might as well get as much as you can. It's not much each year but if you do it every year for 20 years, it adds up.

the difference is you don't have access to it.  Way too many people raid their savings too easily if they have it.

EDIT: I will come out and admit, I am a lazy saver.  I have worked in an industry where I know I get back a big annual bonus, so I use that instead of putting away money like I should.  I worry more about paying down stuff than I do about saving.