It's tax time again!

Did you get a big "thank you" from the government for the interest-free loan you gave them?

Got mine today, but still need all the mortgage and real estate tax information to do ours.

But with baby # 3 that showed up last April and $1,500 interest each month for the house payment we should get almost all of it back.

(Un)Fortunately it is all going to pay debts and such.  I could almost buy a motorcyce with what we usually get back!

(As the year wore on I changed my deductions so that by the end of the year I had no federal tax taken out.  I just lowered my deductions again though at the beginning of the year until I see how much we get back.  My state won't let you take more than 10 without having it reviewed, so I still get stuff taken out no matter what from them).

 BUY THE BIKE!!

The year I got married, we ran our numbers both ways.  It turned out to be cheaper to file jointly (and still is). 

I got my W2 online.  I'm waiting until this weekend to fill out my federal and state forms.  But my goal is to have them filled out and submitted before the end of the month.  No waiting until April for me.  I want my money!

Unless, for some reason I owe (I almost aways owe a little bit for state).  In that case, I'll mail the check on April 16.  

Run them both ways, but in general, filing jointly is the way to go.  In all the years I did taxes, I think there was only 1 occassion that I found it to work better the other way...I don't remember the circumstances, though.

Just waiting on my W2 and I'm off to the races...(I should get a small refund...I changed my withholdings last year to get more money upfront)

It really depends on how much you both make.  If one or the other was more or less unemployed it would be a no-brainer.  It will just depend what tax bracket your new income lands you in.  Odds are married filing joint will be better.

I'd check the law, too.  Now that I think about it, do you even have the option of filing single in the year you got married?  I didn't even look when I did it since my wife was a student so it was a $2k swing in the green for me.  If it's a matter of married filing joint vs. married filing separate then MFJ should win almost every time.

bts

Yea, no kidding.  I wish I could get interest on it, especially considering how much interest credit card companies charge any more.  Although most of what I got back is from continuing education credits and rembursement for educational expenses.

Amen... I've never understood why people are so excited for their huge tax refunds.  I wonder how much extra money the gubmint ends up with each year from all the accumlated interest on those loans you speak of.  Hmm, for fun, let's say there are 100 million taxpayers, and the average refund is $1000.  The gubmit has that money for a year and let's say they get 4% interest on it, money-market or something.

100 million * 1000 * .04 = 4 billion dollars.  That can't be right. 

Word. 

the point is, that's $4 billion that the government shouldn't have.