Recently Married; what should I indicate on the W4!!??

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
August 18, 2018
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I have been filing single, claiming 0 to get the most back for the refund and it was working out great. I recently got married and now have no idea what the best way is to fill out the form to get the most back at year's end. Both of us have full time jobs. I heard that married couples get more tax breaks but is that only if you file a certain way? How does that work? What should I be indicating on my W4? I currently set it to married, withholding at a single rate and claiming 0. Is that correct or should I just be putting married instead? Also, does my spouse and I have to have our options matching on our forms?

Thanks so much for your help!

Carl11_2

Employee

Basically, the less you claim on your W-4, the more your employer will withhold from each paycheck. A W-4 is filed with each employer, and they do not have to be the same. However, it is *IMPORTANT* that you read the W-4 instructions, or you will NOT have enough withheld from each paycheck, and you will not only owe the IRS at tax time, but you will very likely incur an additional underpayment penalty.

As an example, for box E on the new W-4 form is for the child tax credit. If you do NOT have a child under the age of 17 on Dec 31 of the tax year, then you enter ZERO in that box. The instructions for that box clearly state, "To qualify, the child must be under age 17 as of December 31 and must be your dependent who lives with you for more than half the year." So if you claim dependents in this box that are not qualified for the credit, to little will be withheld from your paycheck and you may owe the IRS $money$ at tax time.

The form with instructions can be seen, read and printed at https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf

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