As I've said previously, I make an effort to get a small refund on my taxes, "small" meaning approximately $50 or less.
In order to accomplish this, I developed a withholding worksheet in Excel, which, coupled with the IRS withholding calculator, meant that I should not have expected more than $70 back. (Its final determination was that "any refund or balance due should be less than $50", and I pushed in a little extra to make sure I was on the positive side of the ledger.)
Everything appeared to be calculated correctly. So why, when I ran TaxAct, did my refund amount come out to $143?
Because the student loan interest phase-out range moved up $5,000. My AGI (thanks to retirement contributions) was solidly within the range instead of approaching the very top, so I was able to take more of the deduction than I would have otherwise.
I'm not really fussed about the lost interest, since most of the extra contributions were made in December. So I'd still have paid as much or more to make an electronic payment or to mail the return with delivery confirmation.
And I'd like to say that I will be saving this, but I'm planning on sending $100 of it to my travel fund in anticipation of my cousin's wedding. The remainder will go to my condo fund.
At any rate, if you do your taxes by hand, make sure that you account for the higher phase-out range. You may be able to deduct more than you thought!
In order to accomplish this, I developed a withholding worksheet in Excel, which, coupled with the IRS withholding calculator, meant that I should not have expected more than $70 back. (Its final determination was that "any refund or balance due should be less than $50", and I pushed in a little extra to make sure I was on the positive side of the ledger.)
Everything appeared to be calculated correctly. So why, when I ran TaxAct, did my refund amount come out to $143?
Because the student loan interest phase-out range moved up $5,000. My AGI (thanks to retirement contributions) was solidly within the range instead of approaching the very top, so I was able to take more of the deduction than I would have otherwise.
I'm not really fussed about the lost interest, since most of the extra contributions were made in December. So I'd still have paid as much or more to make an electronic payment or to mail the return with delivery confirmation.
And I'd like to say that I will be saving this, but I'm planning on sending $100 of it to my travel fund in anticipation of my cousin's wedding. The remainder will go to my condo fund.
At any rate, if you do your taxes by hand, make sure that you account for the higher phase-out range. You may be able to deduct more than you thought!
1 Comments:
Great article ,
Keep it up ,
Tracy Ho
wisdomgettingloaded
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