2018 Tax Return

[Singuy]

All right ladies & gents, this is the first year of the Trump tax plan. Have you guys filed yet? Did your taxes increase of decrease compared to last year? I still haven't done mine but I am expecting a dramatic decrease having a small business.

A couple of things that can increase or decrease your taxes

1. Standard deduction increased to 12k/24k for single/couple - Even though this sounds good on paper, those who has a sizable mortgage interest and donations will see themselves still not itemizing because
2. Personal Exemption was repealed. - Since everyone lost about 4k of personal exemption per person, the cumulative effective of itemizing plus personal exemption doesn't work anymore.
3. 10k ceiling for SALT - Those who are trying to itemize, your state tax + property tax are capped at 10k
3. Marriage Tax Penalty is now gone - For couples who has similar pay, you should expect to pay less this year (for high earners WAY less).
4. Overall reduction of % for all brackets, about 4-5%
5. Child credit increased from 1k to 2k, and phase out increased to 400k from 110k for joint filers. For high earners, this is pretty huge.
6. AMT is pretty much gone unless your household income is over 500k single/1million jointly

Remember that your withholdings changed so getting a tax return vs owing taxes doesn't mean you are actually paying more or less taxes this year vs last year.

[creditcardfree]

All right gents, this is the first year of the Trump tax plan. Have you guys filed yet?

Can women respond to this question? I'm sure you aren't trying to limit the responses, but what's up with your reference?

[james.hendrickson]

Waiting to see how Singuy handles this one...

[Singuy]

Well females have no idea how taxes work

jk jk

Sorry it's a habit because my roommate used to say it all the time to us.

[Jluke]

Looks like my tax owed decreased by $3500 compared to last year.

I got the $2000 child tax tax credit this year. I also helped my wife contribute to her 401k so that reduced our overall income so we made less than last year.

Not sure how much my tinkering helped versus the new tax laws.

by “I”, I mean We. MFJ

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I'm saving tentatively $20k. MFJ. Lots of savings from the drop in brackets.

[disneysteve]

I'm getting ours done next Thursday so I don't know yet. That said, it will be hard to really compare because my income was much higher in 2018 than 2017, our daughter graduated college, I maxed my 401k for the first time, etc. Our accountant already told us the Trump plan would negatively affect us (no surprise there) but I don't know how badly yet.

[greenskeeper]

Have you guys filed yet? Did your taxes increase of decrease compared to last year?

Yes, just filed this weekend.

I always gauge to break even during tax time, either by owing a small amount or getting a small refund (since it's YOUR money being returned to you, and not a gift from the IRS).

This year we are getting a $2084 REFUND, so I'll have to take a look at my paycheck withholding to adjust.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

I'll handle that "gents" for Singuy. Gents shall be understood to mean "gentle people".

[Singuy]

But then that excludes Texushusker

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

To answer the question-- our tax paid as a percentage of AGI went up a tiny bit, by 0.03%. In 2017 we itemized. This year we were better off to use the now bigger standard deduction. Our income is a bit less than the median household income.

[corn18]

$133k 2018 federal taxes paid under new tax law
$151k 2018 federal taxes paid under old tax law (I made a spreadsheet to calculate this)

So, a 12% decrease. Most of this came in the marginal brackets as I lost a lot of SALT deduction.

[SavingBucks]

Not quite done with the 2018 return, but it looks like the amount of total taxes to paid is about $20K less than last year. We earned about $5K more and withholding was about $9K less. All is well for us with this tax plan so far......

[~bs]

mentioned this before, but talked to a tax professional. the advice was to wait until the tax law and irs opinions are all finalized.

quick example is if you pay college tuition. If you file now, you will get zero deduction or tax credit for it, even though lawmakers are likely to retroactively enact the deduction/credit.

[kork13]

I've not had a chance to do our taxes yet. No idea yet how it'll turn out... We make significant charitable donations ($25k+ in that alone), so I'm not a fan of the bait-and-switch they pulled with the standard deduction vs. personal exemption. But again, I'll see how it shakes out once I find the time to sit down and do our return. I think I'm also still waiting on our 1099's from Vanguard for my taxable brokerage account.