We had some bad financial news recently. It's taken me a little while to calm my nerves and write about it.
Hubby and I have been house hunting recently, with a plan to hopefully have enough saved for a down payment by the end of the year. It suddenly hit my husband that we should look into our taxes and what we could save by having an interest tax write off once we get a house.
In the process of doing this, he discovered that we have not been paying enough for taxes. WTF? For real? We were so good this year and claimed "married-zero" for both federal and state, so we thought we'd be getting something back next year, not having to pay!
Well, (hold on a sec, while I take a moment to calm myself...) we discovered that we're likely about $4,200 short on our federal taxes and at least $2,000 short on our state. AGHGHGHGHHGHGHGHGHGHHGH! We were both SO FRIGGIN' FRUSTRATED. How can you owe if claiming ZERO?
Our research showed us that by claiming "married" the government assumes that only one spouse is working, not two AND that you have multiple deductions - read: a house and kids. Yeah, that's not our situation.
So, I bit the bullet this week and had my taxes adjusted to have a bit over $1,000 extra put towards our taxes each pay period for the remainder of this year, so that HOPEFULLY, we'll end up breaking even.
By doing this, we've reduced the amount we'll have saved for our future home. Because of this, we've put off home ownership until next year sometime.Oh well. I'm a believer that everything happens for a reason and although we are disappointed about having to wait longer, it just wasn't meant to be right now and someday we'll understand why.
So, my advice for those of you who are claiming married-zero without any other deductions like us, you may want to look into what you've had withheld so far this year so you don't have to pay big time next year.
