Last week I finally filed my federal taxes. I’d had them almost completed for a couple of weeks, but I was waiting on some final information from my husband. He brought it home, I entered it into Turbo Tax, and sent my federal tax form into cyberspace.
I have to say, I love e-filing. I filed a week ago, and my refund is scheduled to be deposited next Friday. Once I get the refund, I can turn around and file my state taxes and pay the amount I owe out of my federal refund.
Which brings me to my two questions of the day.
First, have you done your taxes yet? Or are you someone who waits until the last minute?
Second, are you the type of person who likes a nice fat refund, or do you try to plan your withholdings so you come as close to no refund as possible, without owing?
I’m the second type of person, as I don’t like to loan the government my money interest free. I’d rather have it in my pocket throughout the year. But I do have a little problem. Almost every year I end up with a federal refund, but I owe the state. So my husband can’t withhold less money from his paychecks, because we’ll end up owing the state more. Has anyone else noticed that, or is that an Oregon thing?
In 2009 it won’t matter, though, as I’m sure I’ll have to pay estimated taxes all year to both the federal and state government. I’ll send off the first payment this month with, you guessed it, money from my tax refund.
Now for the giveaway. If you haven’t done your taxes yet, Turbo Tax is allowing me to give away one access code for Turbo Tax Premier Federal + State tax preparation! Usually when you use the federal government’s free-file, you still have to pay to file state taxes, so this is a great deal! And I love Turbo Tax, because it’s so easy!
To enter, just follow this link and enter your name and email address. Your name and email address will be entered in a spreadsheet, and I will use that spreadsheet to pick a winner. Email addresses are used solely for contacting the winner and getting the access code to them. I will close the contest at noon on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 and draw a winner, using the random integer generator at random.org.
Please only enter once, as duplicate entries will be deleted. Hopefully this will make someone’s tax season a little easier!
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m a little surprised about your withholding situation. I can’t speak for Oregon, but here in Michigan there the federal and state withholding are two separate items on my paycheck (and always have been through all my previous employers).
Therefore, if I was in your situation I would either decrease my federal withholding, increase my state, or both.
If anyone is from another state, can you let us know how it works there?
You should be able to change your withholdings on your state W-4 form so that more is being withheld, or you can elect to have an additional x number of dollars withheld for state taxes. My husband does this each year and we don’t fall short at tax time. Your payroll person should be able to help accomplish this.
As for your questions, I’ve already done our taxes, but I admit that I got busy and filed them later than I usually do. I usually file them at the earliest possible opportunity.
We prefer to get a refund at tax time. It doesn’t have to be a big one, but we would rather get money back than to have to scramble to come up with funds to pay in.
I do our taxes myself manually. We make too much to e-file for free using TurboTax Online, but I still run my numbers through TurboTax Onine to see if they are the same as what I calculated manually (they usually are). Then I just mail in my manually calculated forms. Paying to e-file (or actually buying TurboTax for our PC) is an expense we’d rather not pay.
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I agree with the previous posters. You should be able to adjust your state withholding separately from your federal. I filed in the middle of Feb. and I already have my federal refund, and I’m waiting on my state refund still.
We actually had a pretty large federal refund this year, which I don’t normally like to receive. I would rather have the money in my husband’s paycheck and not give the gov’t a loan. However, my husband got a sizable bonus last year, which always messes up the amount that they withhold, since they always take a ton from the bonus for taxes.
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I like to get my taxes filed ASAP. This year I had to wait for the federal to finalize a form for our retirement savers credit. Finally, around the middle of February I got them filed.
We usually get a big refund at the end of the year because since my husband does some work on the side, we have extra taken out of his check to be sure that it will cover any regular or self-employment taxes we owe.
By the way, anyone who hasn’t filed their taxes yet this year may want to check out my post “How to Make Your Tax Preparer Happy this Year.” I compiled a list of several things that one might need for their tax preparation.
I worked at an accounting office for 8 years, so I know many of the common items that tax preparers need to complete a tax return. Maybe this will help someone.
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We file our taxes as soon as I receive my W2 form. I never file later than mid-February if I can help it. We did receive our refund, and I put it to very good use. I dumped a fair amount of it into our emergency fund, and made an extra mortgage payment. I really don’t mind getting a refund.
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I guess “I” did my taxes yesterday; my boyfriend’s brother is a tax accountant and graciously offered to do mine. He says I owe the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania $3 (on my interest income from online savings… I usually owe a couple bucks), but I’m getting a nice fat refund from my federal. I know that I’m loaning the government money for free, but right now they need it (kind of funny… okay, not really funny) and it’s a forced savings program for me. If I get a thousand dollars in a lump sum, it goes straight to savings, but if I had an extra $100 or so in my paycheck every month, most of it would probably get frittered away.
Hi Lynnae,
I do file my taxes asap. We file pretty much as soon as we get my w-2. My husband can print his before we actually receive it so we file really early. We both actually are blessed to claim 1 (without owing) so we don’t receive as large of a refund but we definitely need the money during the year.
As far as state taxes, our state has multiple types of withholding. You can do single, married, or married but withholding single. It sounds weird, but it actually works out for us in the long run because we owe a lot less then if we withheld married. Mostly because my husband works across state line so we have to pay taxes to 2 states (which I hate) but we have little control over that situation. They also have where you can claim a withholding status plus have a flat rate taken out as extra each paycheck.
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I’m going to try to adjust my state withholding, as previous posters suggested – but here in Illinois, we have always received a Fed refund, and ALWAYS owed the state! I figured it was just because we have high taxes here in the flatlands. That being said, my husband and I have had a ritual since we began filing together – on April 15th at approximately 9 pm, I gather all the information and fill in the forms while he paces the floor, muttering about filing extensions. Then, with minutes to spare, we jump into the car and race to the post office. We know which branches have a late drop-off. The relief that washes over us as we hand our envelopes through the car window to a grumpy, underpaid federal employee gives “financial freedom” a new meaning. We drive home giddy with promise, having dodged another deadline bullet, sometimes forgetting to roll up the windows. Then we toast our good fortune with a saucy little bubbly (Miller High LIfe). In recent years, this “speed date” has taken new twists, as we have had to bundle two sleepy children into the frigid spring night, but the kids have learned to join in the carnival atmosphere. No, e-filing may be technologically superior, but nothing gives you such a feeling of reckless accomplishment as filing your taxes at the last possible minute!
I file our returns via Turbo Tax asap. This year I had them done by the 3rd week in January. I love Turbo Tax because once you have used them one year, when you go in the next year they have your information on file and just stick it in your new forms. Very cool. Plus they don’t miss anything in deductions.
We always get a nice size return, but we have a lot of kids and even though we use the highest deduction we can on our W-4, we still get a return. Plus we’ve been able to claim medical expenses, and that helped a lot.
We don’t have state taxes here so I can’t help you with that one. I hope we don’t. They keep talking about maybe starting a state tax.
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@jill – I am laughing so hard at your comment, because it sounds like something I used to do before I was married. But hey, nothing like a little adrenaline to get you moving, right? I know I work best under pressure! LOL
I had no idea you could adjust state withholding separately! Can you tell I haven’t worked an outside job in a while? I’ll have to tell my husband to look into that. I always figured it was because Oregon taxes us to death.
I am right with you on the e-filing. It is so much easier and convenient. I have also never had a problem when e-filing, it has always been fast and accurate.
I used to be a midnight filer like Jill! I always was one of those people rushing out at 11:58 to go to the post office. Now, I have an accountant do them because they are really complicated. Mine are done already and I got too large of a refund from Federal and owed City. Since my life has been topsy turvy I wasn’t surprised they were off. I adjusted everything though so it should be close to zero. I HATE giving the government a free loan!
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We already filed ours and we try real hard to not get alot of money back because we don’t want to be loaning the government money also! But, even more so, this year was significantly important because we live in CA and if you’ve heard about CA, there was a moment when we didn’t know IF we’d get our money back. So far, they say it will come, but it was a real wake up call to change our deductions to make that number even closer.
Oregon does tax us to death…. and they want to add a sales tax also? nuts!
I’m in the same boat. Get a federal refund every year (about $900) and owe the state of Oregon every year (about $600)… Maybe this year I’ll get lucky and they’ll be none owed – haha – not with Oregon. As above, maybe I’ll also look into adjusting the state…after I see how this year goes. I knew it was a possibility, but this is the first time my income will be roughly the same two years in a row.
Mine are at my tax man’s – I usually send them mid-February and he gets them back to me about now. Way too complicated for me to even worry about :)
I always over think my taxes. I’m a CPA so I probably ‘run the numbers’ three or four times a year. I always try to end up owing just a little and then file at April 15th. As long as you don’t owe too much there isn’t a penalty for paying April 15th and then I can earn a few more months of interest on the tax due amount. Of course with interest rates so low it doesn’t really pay that much.
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