I'm hoping I've overadded the wages, and underadded the deductions: it looks like we may owe $5600 beyond what we withheld. As we probably won't be assessed a penalty (our taxes are WAY Beyond 2005, the second of two conditions required for nonassessment of penalty), it doesn't seem that bad, and it's preferable to having money returned to us by the government, but OW.
As in:
we don't have that in savings yet OW.
"but I was gonna feed my Roth with our existing money" OW.
"but what about replacing the windows this year?" OW
"I thought we saved more money last year" OW
We didn't save much money in 2006. I paid off my scoot, we paid $1600 in damages incurred on a rental scooter my spouse commandeered and crashed, $1100 in dental services for our child, $1400 in motorcycle gear for the both of us, $900 on updating the wardrobe, $1100 on a brake job and service for the car, and fed $5500 to my Roth. I also overpaid our mortgage principal by $1300. All of this: aiyee.
I feel I've been obliviously wasteful. Especially since I'd been doing things like abstaining from using the car, choosing more fuel-efficient transportation, holding off on getting cellular phones, taking on extra jobs. Being free of consumer debt is little consolation.
Because now I can see it's only a matter of how long a string of emergencies could be to bring an otherwise doing-okay family into debt: car breakdowns, accidents, medical crop-ups, sudden family deaths, disasters affecting the home. You can't schedule these for the convenience of your emergency fund!!
And before anyone gets any holier-than-thou "I always plan my exemptions" thoughts, let me explain that I was a stay-at-home mom for 20 months before returning to work for a two-month contract in November 2005 that was renewed every two months, and I was ignorant of the return of the strong job outlook in my dotbomb environment. I didn't know how long it would take for me to find my next contract.
So I don't want to do the taxes this year. Let some impassive third party go through my life, tightlipped and poker faced, and deliver the result to me.
1st Crack at 2006 Taxes : OW OW OW
February 14th, 2007 at 01:07 am
February 14th, 2007 at 02:18 am 1171419503
February 14th, 2007 at 02:23 am 1171419792
February 14th, 2007 at 02:26 am 1171420012
February 14th, 2007 at 01:05 pm 1171458313
February 14th, 2007 at 08:18 pm 1171484309
I accidentally entered our ROTH conversion twice and it came up with a $5k bill or something - I about passed out. But I was lucky it was just an error. So sorry, hang in there.
All I have to say that is helpful is that the IRS withholding calculator is your friend. You can look at it throughout the year and see where you are at, and avoid this again next year. Good Luck...
Oh & A tip on the sales tax - you can deduct taxes on big-ticket items like autos and boats in addition to the standard sales tax deduction for your income. I would think your scoots qualify for that.
To the rest of the comments, my boss is a CPA and I work at a CPA firm and the software was not calculating state withholding correctly. I just found out it was assuming 0 exemptions by looking at paycheckcity.com. On a whim I put 0 for state and it matched my paycheck. When I asked my boss he said he had no idea why and no one else had seemed to notice. He put 14 exemptions in for me and it was calculating 0. He is withholding a flat amount every check for me now. Phew. I imagine errors are pretty common when we don't even seem to notice...