Money for the Rest of Us

My taxes are finally filed. I was a little late getting them done this year because they ended up being more complex than I thought. I filed electronically with the help of free Turbo Tax from State Farm.

The good news is I estimated my taxes almost perfectly. Despite having a full-time job in the beginning of last year, and then having two low-paying part-time jobs later in the year, and being a full-time student (which equals tax credits) I finagled it to only get $180 back from the feds and owe $7 to the state. Considering the year before I was in a similar boat (with tax credits and various jobs) and got over $1000 back, I’m quite pleased.

I realize this doesn’t make sense to some people: how can I be more excited about getting only $180 back than getting over $1000 back? Because that means that this year I had that extra money to save over the course of the year to earn interest on. And I’m just pleased that I was able to estimate so precociously. Actually, it was the IRS who helped me with this. Their tax calculator is quite accurate (as I suppose it should be).

If you think you may have extra deductions this year and want to withhold the proper amount, use the IRS’s tax withholding calculator.