Well, you made it. You filed your taxes right on time or you filed that extension to give you a little more time. It is that one thing in our life that is for certain – filing taxes. Many dread April 15. I can remember just a few years ago when our end of the old year and beginning of the new was greeted with the receipt of our tax books and forms from both federal and state. It gave us something to look forward to! Thanks to technology those parcels are a thing of the past.
This year did you get a refund or did you owe? In 2012 is was estimated that over 143,000,000 tax returns were filed and some 80% of filers received some amount of a refund. That is 112,000,000 refunds! Getting money back from what you paid in is always a nice feeling, but what about the amount that you received. I did not go real deep in my research, but I know that many people I meet who get a refund typically get a big refund. My definition of “big” is $2,000 or more. If that was you, could you have done a better job withholding?
Likewise, for those that are getting a refund, there is a smaller amount who are actually required to add a little more to what they have already paid in. That may be you. Unlike the refund, paying more is much less attractive. A small amount would be ok, but any large amount is painful!
If you received a large refund or you owed a large amount, take some time to do a review as to why. What could you have done better to lessen the impact? Yes, there is an impact to the large refund too. You could have had most of that divided over all the months last year.
Use the IRS Withholding Estimator (click here to access) to better withhold what you will owe. While not perfect, this tool will allow you to bring home what would have been a refund over the course of the year. Likewise, you can make sure you are withholding enough to cover what you do owe. Either way, you can run this same tool through the year at appropriate checkpoints and make sure you are still on track.
Each state will be different in how they offer such a tool. I encourage you to reach out to your state’s revenue office and see what they can do. In my state of Georgia, it is a simple form to download to attack with a pencil and calculator.
Do it today to make sure you best use the remaining months of this year to withhold what is truly needed.