is it sad that i get super excited to do my taxes?

[chimaxi83]

I haven't felt the tax return joy in years. I get nothing back :'(

 

[Tweak155]

500-1000 refund ... your withholding are already pretty good/close!

I look forward to getting mine done/over with. Whatever refund I get I will just apply to my mortgage. After 6 years of paying the mortgage and house dropping from like 180K to 100K and then slowly climbing back up (around 150k now)... I am finally starting to build some equity!

Grats man... I have an inspection on a house today. I may be a home owner once again by the end of the month.

 

[gorcorps]

This girl I know claims 0 on her w-4 so she can experience the joy of receiving a giant refund.. LOL. She also took out a 72 mo auto loan because the monthly was the smallest so that's the best option! :awe:

hah

When I bought a car a few years back they were having 0% for 60 months. The credit guy mentioned I could "save" a lot each month if I wanted to do 72 months. I laughed, mentioned that I have no desire to pay more for the same car with interest, and he seemed a little confused when I wasn't interested in lowering my monthly payment.

 

[Tweak155]

hah

When I bought a car a few years back they were having 0% for 60 months. The credit guy mentioned I could "save" a lot each month if I wanted to do 72 months. I laughed, mentioned that I have no desire to pay more for the same car with interest, and he seemed a little confused when I wasn't interested in lowering my monthly payment.

Unfortunately monthly payment is all people look at a lot of the times. I'm shocked they don't have longer loans. I guess they couldn't recoup the costs probably if they had to repo the vehicle.

 

[spidey07]

hah

When I bought a car a few years back they were having 0% for 60 months. The credit guy mentioned I could "save" a lot each month if I wanted to do 72 months. I laughed, mentioned that I have no desire to pay more for the same car with interest, and he seemed a little confused when I wasn't interested in lowering my monthly payment.

People do mortgages the same way.

"So...how much do you want to spend per month? If you spend an extra 15,000 on your down payment you can buy points and lower your monthly payment!"

 

[BlitzPuppet]

You're just plain sad, period.

 

[Nintendesert]

seriously it is the thing i look forward to most, from january to april

i usually get like 500$-1000$ back... that i promptly invest

So you're super excited you gave the government an interest free loan? :whiste:

 

[zinfamous]

Exactly! You could have put that money into savings instead! And, let's say that you get a $2000 return. At current interest rates, you lost out on NINE WHOLE DOLLARS, sucker!

I have absolutely no idea what to expect on my return this year. Somewhere between owing $2000 and getting back $4000. I figure, "close enough, and not worth the bother to track it better during the year." Current effort = 0. Effort to get the return as close to 0 as possible would be much, much more.

It's like I paid 9 whole dollars to rent the roads I drive on daily and educate American kids for a year.

I WAS ROBBED!!!1

I hate morans.

 

[Anubis]

damn that 9$ woudl have really made all the difference this year as well

 

[BurnItDwn]

Grats man... I have an inspection on a house today. I may be a home owner once again by the end of the month.

Well, I hope it goes well! Good luck and I hope you find something that meets your needs.

 

[TXHokie]

Oh snap, plugged in some prelim numbers and I'm owing like $1700. Guess I'll revisit it in Apr.

 

[alkemyst]

Getting something like only $500-1000 back is hardly OVERPAYING. Good luck if you ever get nailed with underpayment of taxes in withholding. It will more than kill any savings you thought you were doing.

When I worked in banks, there were tons of people trying to pay their bills at the very last minute for the same reasons. Even a single late payment fee was more than the interest they were usually making for several months, if they were even making interest in their checking accounts.

 

[CPA]

Getting something like only $500-1000 back is hardly OVERPAYING. Good luck if you ever get nailed with underpayment of taxes in withholding. It will more than kill any savings you thought you were doing.

When I worked in banks, there were tons of people trying to pay their bills at the very last minute for the same reasons. Even a single late payment fee was more than the interest they were usually making for several months, if they were even making interest in their checking accounts.

Underpayment penalty is not that much. I'm getting hit with it this year. Underpaid by almost $5K. Penalty is like $50. No biggie.

 

[torpid]

I voted it depends on a number of factors. Really just the factor of, do you expect to get a huge refund or not. We expect to get a huge one this year...

 

[CZroe]

In recent years, every time I've claimed 1 and single on my forms with no additional witholdings I've ended up owing hundreds (over a thousand once!) before claiming Head of Household, so trusting my employer to hold enough clearly wasn't working (wasn't expecting to be able to claim that but could due to conveniently changed living arrangements). This year I changed jobs and started holding an extra $20+$10 per weekly check so I better not get sticker-shock again.

 

[alkemyst]

Underpayment penalty is not that much. I'm getting hit with it this year. Underpaid by almost $5K. Penalty is like $50. No biggie.

If you are only looking at getting $1000-1500, that's a 5% or so chunk.

Also it's percentage based so you must have been close to how much you did pay.

IRS can also compute the under payment based on quarters and apply interest to them being late.

 

[thegimp03]

We have gotten owned by taxes the last few years. Really not looking forward to it.

 

[Gunslinger08]

I like getting them out of the way. We owed several thousand for a few years, but I've gotten it worked out now. We donated more than usual this year, so it looks like we'll get a small refund.

 

[zinfamous]

Underpayment penalty is not that much. I'm getting hit with it this year. Underpaid by almost $5K. Penalty is like $50. No biggie.

Interesting.

so, for some people, if they calculate ahead and yet get hit with a penalty for underpaying--50$, this might still be preferred to overpaying and losing out on roughly $10 in interest from savvy personal investing?

Because...government is teh devil?

:hmm:

 

[zinfamous]

Oh snap, plugged in some prelim numbers and I'm owing like $1700. Guess I'll revisit it in Apr.

love this attitude.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

seriously it is the thing i look forward to most, from january to april

i usually get like 500$-1000$ back... that i promptly invest

Don't blame you one bit dude. I have a wedding coming up in March and I'm going INSANE looking at Mint to monitor how bad the losses are month-to-month. It sucks balls I would love to get in a good 2-5k between myself and my fiancee just to put a small patch on the wounds I'm seeing. :'(