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Tax Returns - Have you Started Your 2018 Return Yet? (1 Viewer)

Chemical X

Footballguy
I read a couple of articles about some people in NJ that are completely screwed by the new rules and now owe thousands. 

To me the new rules seemed to be a blue state tax, so I am curious if any FBGs here from NY, NJ, CA have started their returns and see anything funky, also where they stand year over year.

 
I read a couple of articles about some people in NJ that are completely screwed by the new rules and now owe thousands. 

To me the new rules seemed to be a blue state tax, so I am curious if any FBGs here from NY, NJ, CA have started their returns and see anything funky, also where they stand year over year.
I already finished and submitted mine, but I live in Missouri.

Got the biggest refund I've seen in years, but we upped our withholding this past year.  Got sick of having to cough up a few hundred every April.

 
It hit Texas fairly hard as well.  The real problem was that Trump basically made the setup such that the standard deduction looked like a tax cut from the perspective of withholding.  It had the effect of making people's take home look larger, but it was just inflated pump and dump.

The IRS put out a bulletin that was supposed to get people to fix their W-2 stuff, but many ignored it, and now will be stuck with needing to pay in more, and possibly have penalties.

 
I read a couple of articles about some people in NJ that are completely screwed by the new rules and now owe thousands. 

To me the new rules seemed to be a blue state tax, so I am curious if any FBGs here from NY, NJ, CA have started their returns and see anything funky, also where they stand year over year.
I am in California and got screwed.  Owe more this year than I have for as long as I can remember.  Must use the standard deduction instead of itemized.  Turned out not good. 

 
I read a couple of articles about some people in NJ that are completely screwed by the new rules and now owe thousands. 

To me the new rules seemed to be a blue state tax, so I am curious if any FBGs here from NY, NJ, CA have started their returns and see anything funky, also where they stand year over year.
Yep, they are a blue-state tax. I'm in Minnesota. We owe about five grand more in taxes this year than last on virtually same income.

 
Can you explain the limit like I'm from FBG?  I haven't studied it much.
State and local tax deductions are capped at $20K now.  Prior to this you could have much more.  To keep it simple, if I had donated $25K worth of "stuff" last year, I'd be able to claim it.  Now, I can only claim $20K. I have no fiscal incentive to donate more than that. Personal and Dependent exemptions, moving expenses, HELOC deductions, local city/property taxes etc...all total can only go up to $20K now.  In some areas $20K is only a partial property tax payment...doesn't include ANY of the rest.

 
State and local tax deductions are capped at $20K now.  Prior to this you could have much more.  To keep it simple, if I had donated $25K worth of "stuff" last year, I'd be able to claim it.  Now, I can only claim $20K. I have no fiscal incentive to donate more than that. Personal and Dependent exemptions, moving expenses, HELOC deductions, local city/property taxes etc...all total can only go up to $20K now.  In some areas $20K is only a partial property tax payment...doesn't include ANY of the rest.
oh crap....thx.  some areas have prop. taxes of close to 15k.

 
State and local tax deductions are capped at $20K now.  Prior to this you could have much more.  To keep it simple, if I had donated $25K worth of "stuff" last year, I'd be able to claim it.  Now, I can only claim $20K. I have no fiscal incentive to donate more than that. Personal and Dependent exemptions, moving expenses, HELOC deductions, local city/property taxes etc...all total can only go up to $20K now.  In some areas $20K is only a partial property tax payment...doesn't include ANY of the rest.
The cap on state and local taxes is $10k for 2018.

 
In recent years, refund has been ~ $4k-5k annually.   This year we owe $200.  State and local tax deduction cap killed us.  

Thanks Trump! 

 
NY

Already filed and state took out of account. 

Federally, I got half of what I have been usually getting so that sucked. 

ETA: Just checked my account and federal money is in there. 

 
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Being in a red state with kids and a history of taking the standard deduction I figured it'd be an improvement for us and it was. I didn't change anything because I wanted to be sure and our savings could stand to use a boost anyway. 

Now that I know how it will shake out I am going to allocate most of the excess between ira and hsa beginning with my next paycheck. Next step, increasing the 529...

 
It hit Texas fairly hard as well.  The real problem was that Trump basically made the setup such that the standard deduction looked like a tax cut from the perspective of withholding.  It had the effect of making people's take home look larger, but it was just inflated pump and dump.

The IRS put out a bulletin that was supposed to get people to fix their W-2 stuff, but many ignored it, and now will be stuck with needing to pay in more, and possibly have penalties.
Do you mean W-4?

Yeah, this was a definite shot across the bow of all blue states.  He retaliated against the states that didn't vote for him.  The blue states have much higher housing costs which mean bigger mortgages so bend over and lube up. 

I have 5 kids (claim 4) but that doesn't matter now.  2 kids is all you get.

I'm going to get absolutely slaughtered this year so I am not doing my taxes until the last minute.  I can't stomach to look.  

What happens if I just don't pay?  Asking for a friend. 

 
State and local tax deductions are capped at $20K now.  Prior to this you could have much more.  To keep it simple, if I had donated $25K worth of "stuff" last year, I'd be able to claim it.  Now, I can only claim $20K. I have no fiscal incentive to donate more than that. Personal and Dependent exemptions, moving expenses, HELOC deductions, local city/property taxes etc...all total can only go up to $20K now.  In some areas $20K is only a partial property tax payment...doesn't include ANY of the rest.
Capped at 10k not 20k

 
The standard "claim 0" approach was going to be woefully short for us, so I added an extra pay in on my W4 for the second half of the year. Feels like this was set up as a short term win (slightly higher payroll) but a long term loss (returns became payment due).

I think a lot of people will be surprised when they calculate their taxes. 

 
Our tax bill Is $4800, our withholding was $4100. Thankful for  rubios child tax credit changes. 

@General Malaise what do you mean you only get 2 kids this year? Difference between old standard deduction and new replacing child deduction?

 
The standard "claim 0" approach was going to be woefully short for us, so I added an extra pay in on my W4 for the second half of the year. Feels like this was set up as a short term win (slightly higher payroll) but a long term loss (returns became payment due).

I think a lot of people will be surprised when they calculate their taxes. 
I agree with this. 

 
I typically pay in $50 a year come January.  Suspecting I'll have to pay a few hundred more in 2019.  I can deal with it, but my goodness this might be a big deal.

 
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Our tax bill Is $4800, our withholding was $4100. Thankful for  rubios child tax credit changes. 

@General Malaise what do you mean you only get 2 kids this year? Difference between old standard deduction and new replacing child deduction?
I don't know, I'm all panicky. I am under this impression that having 4 kids is no more beneficial this year and beyond than having 2.  Hope I'm wrong.  I'm still too scared to do taxes. :bag:

 
I don't know, I'm all panicky. I am under this impression that having 4 kids is no more beneficial this year and beyond than having 2.  Hope I'm wrong.  I'm still too scared to do taxes. :bag:
A lot will depend on their ages. For any under 17 the child credit went from $1k to $2k each.  The AGI phase out was also increased to $400k.  Although the $4k personal exemption per household individual is gone, the extra child credit may offset and exceed the loss of the deduction.

 
Done.
Getting back more than last year, but that's because I had about $12k in 1099 income in 2017 and in 2018 I'm all W2.
State & local are always <$10k.
Used Turbo Tax. Yes, I believe it's overpriced. I'm just used to it. 

 
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State and local tax deductions are capped at $20K now.  Prior to this you could have much more.  To keep it simple, if I had donated $25K worth of "stuff" last year, I'd be able to claim it.  Now, I can only claim $20K. I have no fiscal incentive to donate more than that. Personal and Dependent exemptions, moving expenses, HELOC deductions, local city/property taxes etc...all total can only go up to $20K now.  In some areas $20K is only a partial property tax payment...doesn't include ANY of the rest.
As mentioned, SALT is $10k. And all those other things are outside the SALT limit and are treated separately. If you donated $25k or even $20k, then you should easily exceed the standard deduction and be itemizing.

 
State and local tax deductions are capped at $20K now.  Prior to this you could have much more.  To keep it simple, if I had donated $25K worth of "stuff" last year, I'd be able to claim it.  Now, I can only claim $20K. I have no fiscal incentive to donate more than that. Personal and Dependent exemptions, moving expenses, HELOC deductions, local city/property taxes etc...all total can only go up to $20K now.  In some areas $20K is only a partial property tax payment...doesn't include ANY of the rest.
To be clear, the above is not true.

The SALT cap is $10k - i.e. you can only deduct up to a cap of $10,000 for state/local taxes and property taxes.  Mortgage interest and charitable contributions are still deductible subject to the similar limits under old law with slight modifications that only affect a very, very small percentage of people.  There is no $20,000 cap.

 
Started, completed & filed...for my wife & I and our two daughters. My refund this year is noticeably lighter than last year (about half) but we did have a lot less itemized deductions this year.

 
So just preliminary filled mine out.

So somehow we made way more than last year which is not accurate.  Unless it's because of the extra pay period?   I was expecting about 5% and it was closer to 10.

I think I hit the standard deduction and no exemptions?  I just have 1 dependent left that is claimable so that hurt a little plus no college interest.

I need to revisit it but I owed way more taxes than last year. Still getting about 1k back but I changed a lot of withholdings this past year plus no daycare...

 
A lot will depend on their ages. For any under 17 the child credit went from $1k to $2k each.  The AGI phase out was also increased to $400k.  Although the $4k personal exemption per household individual is gone, the extra child credit may offset and exceed the loss of the deduction.
I think it pretty much balanced out for us, Cinco kids.

My bank hasn't pushed the 1099 div yet, that should be next week. I've done everything else already using hr block online.

The tax code is still weird to me. Over 6 figures income, I think AGI is around $80k, we should receive $5k more than we paid on the year. 

 
State and local tax deductions are capped at $20K now.  Prior to this you could have much more.  To keep it simple, if I had donated $25K worth of "stuff" last year, I'd be able to claim it.  Now, I can only claim $20K. I have no fiscal incentive to donate more than that. Personal and Dependent exemptions, moving expenses, HELOC deductions, local city/property taxes etc...all total can only go up to $20K now.  In some areas $20K is only a partial property tax payment...doesn't include ANY of the rest.
The cap is on deducting state and local taxes paid.  It's not a cap on all deductions.

 
I don't know, I'm all panicky. I am under this impression that having 4 kids is no more beneficial this year and beyond than having 2.  Hope I'm wrong.  I'm still too scared to do taxes. :bag:
It's $2k per child tax credit.  But they are no longer exemptions, so I think it just evens out.

 
Taxes are easy when you are single, own a house and only have 2 cats.  My refund should be in the bank next week.  

 
While a blue-stater (MD), the new tax law had a neutral impact on us.  Both my fed and state taxes were up 7% this year, but that is mostly due to some non-recurring capital gains stuff on my part.  I'd have to run my 2018 numbers through my 2017 Turbo Tax to get the exact answer, and screw that.

There is some aggravation - I itemized deductions even though they were only $21k this year.  This cost me $600 on fed taxes but saved me $1200 on state taxes.  By MD law I have to use the same deduction method both fed and state.  Otherwise I would have used the standard deduction for the Feds and itemized deductions for State.

 
While a blue-stater (MD), the new tax law had a neutral impact on us.  Both my fed and state taxes were up 7% this year, but that is mostly due to some non-recurring capital gains stuff on my part.  I'd have to run my 2018 numbers through my 2017 Turbo Tax to get the exact answer, and screw that.

There is some aggravation - I itemized deductions even though they were only $21k this year.  This cost me $600 on fed taxes but saved me $1200 on state taxes.  By MD law I have to use the same deduction method both fed and state.  Otherwise I would have used the standard deduction for the Feds and itemized deductions for State.
MN allows me to itemize on state even though had to take the standard on federal. So that saved me a few bucks anyway.

 
Federal taxes: owe $27

State Taxes: $14 refund.  Gonna hit a local Greek joint for lunch when this baby gets deposited.

Single guy, renting.  My taxes are embarrassingly easy.

 
I posted this in the other thread but I'll post it here too. My tax bill was actually less this year than last. But I totally missed the change to my withholding and ended up owing a fair amount. So that was on me. Makes me wonder how many are in the same boat I am and THINK they got screwed this year without realizing what was really behind it?

 

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