Monday, January 21, 2008

Stupid Government

So I filed my taxes today online, and I OWE $85. That sucks!

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

that sucks...I am hoping the marriage credit will pay off in a big way

Eric said...

owe $85? Including student loan interest paid and 401(k) contributions? If I don't include those I'd owe like $10, with it it'll be ~+$500. Maybe we'll get lucky and the $800 tax rebate will be passed by the government.

Leighton said...

Well, I should have been more clear. Remember I got that huge raise this year, and didn't change a thing (filing status, 401k contribution) to 'roll the dice' and see what would happen. So I was pretty right on. I upped my 401k contribution this morning to cover me for this year.

Nick D said...

Man I can't believe you already have your W-2, I should be getting some money back as well. And this rebate would be nice as well.

Anonymous said...

eric, your student loan interest is more than the standard deduction?? I would assume that Leighton just used standard deduction so loans do not count....correct me if I am wrong you CPA's

Adam said...

Taxes are for squares. I stopped paying them a long time ago.

Eric said...

Student loan interest is removed from your taxable income, in addition to the standard deduction the way I understand it. I just use the 1098-E form I get from my loan institution, and fill in the box like I'm told. According to the estimators I've used online, student loan interest only increases my tax return by $66 anyway, the rest is from my 401(k) contribution.

Eric said...

Update, direct from the H&R Block tax tips website:

"If you paid interest on a qualified student loan during the year, you can deduct up to $2,500 of those payments, even if you don’t itemize your deductions."

Leighton said...

Yeah, my deduction for my student loan interest was only like $500.

Nick D said...

There you go, nicely done eric.

Logan said...

Dang, I'm glad my uncle is a CPA and does my taxes for me!

Jae said...

just finished ours, between federal and state we'll be seeing a little over $1300 back that we lent to our state and federal governments interest free for the past year (grrrrr). we'll have to try and predict this years deductions a little more accurately (we ended up with over 22 grand in deductions, holla!)

Anonymous said...

due to me not switching from single to married I successfully loaned the government approximately $2600. Definitely need to get that fixed.

By the way thank you for the student loan info Eric that added about 300.