STUMP » Articles » Taxing Tuesday: Update Your Withholdings, Shot Across the Bow, and "Clever" Ideas Progressing » 6 March 2018, 04:30

Where Stu & MP spout off about everything.

Taxing Tuesday: Update Your Withholdings, Shot Across the Bow, and "Clever" Ideas Progressing  

by

6 March 2018, 04:30

Again, a “calling it in” STUMP special. It was going to be a geeking-out special… but weather intervened.

via GIPHY

Okay, let’s do this lazy style!

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: RE-CALCULATE YOUR WITHHOLDING

Hello, my fellow U.S. wage-earner and taxpayer.

Hie thee over to the IRS withholding calculator.

I gathered the info as mentioned in this USAToday piece:

Gather your most recent pay stub from work. Check to make sure it reflects the amount of Federal income tax that you have had withheld so far in 2018.

Have a completed copy of your 2017 (or possibly 2016) tax return handy. Information on that return can help you estimate income and other items for 2018. However, note that the new tax law made significant changes to itemized deductions.

Keep in mind that the withholding calculator results are only as accurate as the information entered. If your circumstances change during the year, come back to the calculator to make sure your withholding is still correct.
……
Use the results from the withholding calculator to determine if you should complete a new Form W-4 and, if so, what information to put on a new Form W-4. There is no need to complete the worksheets that accompany Form W-4 if the calculator is used.

As a general rule, the fewer withholding allowances you enter on the Form W-4 the higher your tax withholding will be. Entering “0’‘ or “1’‘ on line 5 of the W-4 means more tax will be withheld. Entering a bigger number means less tax withholding, resulting in a smaller tax refund or potentially a tax bill or penalty.
If you complete a new Form W-4, you should submit it to your employer as soon as possible. With withholding occurring throughout the year, it’s better to take this step early on.

So it took me about 15 minutes to get this done…. and I ended up with exactly the same number of withholding allowances.

Yup, even with the tax cap.

As I said, for me, it’s at worst a wash.

Anyway, this is not necessarily true of everybody. It does look like I will still be doing itemized deductions, because even with all the caps, etc., I go over the standard deduction (for now).

SHOT ACROSS THE BOW: INDICATIONS OF WHAT’S YET TO COME?

Politico seems to have noticed that Trump keeps getting things done while the media are caught up in RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA fantasies. By which, I don’t mean Trump personally, but his administration. So they keep doing these “catch up with Trump” pieces, which makes me laugh every time. Exactly whose fault is it that these things aren’t being covered more, hmm?

Item number 4 from last week’s list: Treasury closes a loophole in the tax law

The bigger news came when the Department announced that it would close a loophole in the tax law that would have allowed wealthy money managers to continue paying a lower tax rate on so-called carried interest. The tax law made it harder for people to claim the carried interest tax break—a break for super-rich private-equity investors that Trump promised to repeal in the presidential campaign—but the law contained a vaguely worded section that allowed money managers to avoid that crackdown. Treasury this week made clear that it won’t allow that.

So, guys, just how lucky are you feeling that you’ll be able to get one past the IRS with calling paying taxes to the state making “charitable donations”. I have a feeling that particular loophole will get shut down hard.

NEW JERSEY DOES THE FAKE CHARITY THING

New Jersey lawmakers approve plan to write off property taxes as charitable donations

New Jersey senators approved a bill that would allow homeowners to pay “charitable contributions” to local governments in lieu of property taxes to get around a new $10,000 limit on the amount of state and local taxes people can deduct from their federal returns.

The state Senate approved the bill 28-9 even as supporters admitted that the workaround may not work.

The bill came in response to an overhaul to the federal tax code that President Donald Trump signed in December. The Republican-led effort capped the deduction for state and local taxes at $10,000, which is well below the level that many property owners in high-tax states like New Jersey pay.

It would be kinder if the IRS just out and said no.

No, this is bullshit.

It would be interesting if they string along the states and say somewhere around November: no.

We’ll see.

But again, look to what they did with the people trying to be clever about carried interest. “Cleverness” is not going to be appreciated, I think.

TAX TWEETS

Yay! The really lazy way to put together a blog post!

via GIPHY

It seems that the politicians are out in force. I try to give equal time to multiple sides.










(who?)







I think it would probably be better for Democrats not to refer to anything regarding taxes. But what do I know.


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