2018 Taxes

[SayMyName]

Changes to SALT are hitting me, biggest check I have ever cut to the IRS

Yep, that's what did me in this year as well. The $10k cap is the difference between itemized deductions being over or under the standard amount. Basically all of my property tax is now non-deductible.

And I really dislike Iowa's overly complicated filing process, and rates. Always have to jack up withholdings compared to Federal so I can break near even on state return.

 

[bld1942]

I am not wealthy and came out better overall with the Federal under the new tax laws, was pleasantly surprised.

 

[agardini]

Filed my federal through them about a week ago & just got my refund. Process was pretty easy & I didn't notice anything missing/incorrect (haven't checked against an H&R Block/TurboTax).

Filing a state return for Iowa wasn't available at that time, but it seems to be now (they said I'd get a notification when Iowa was available, but I didn't receive anything). Just logged on today & started the state process. After inputting everything, they have us down to be married filing jointly - nowhere to choose to do married filing separately on same return. Asked a chat rep, and they said since we are filed jointly on federal we can't choose differently for state. I told them that doesn't make any sense, so I guess we'll be filing state somewhere else.

Can't recommend because of that. Otherwise, seemed fine (and it still was free, even with minimal investment stuff).

I had that same issue with credit karma. I also believe that they have some issue with how they have the iowa form set up. I went back to h&r block and got a vastly different outcome for my state taxes. Credit Karma had me needing to pay the state about $700 while h&r block has be getting a $600 refund. I was shocked when I did the h&r block one, so I went and double checked all my numbers and what I entered was identical. The federal amount was only different by about a few dollars, so rounding error i assume. But the fact that there was such a disparity in my iowa return had me going elsewhere for my taxes. Because of this, I would NOT recommend credit karma.

 

[SouthJerseyCy]

Lose exemptions but gain child tax credit should be a wash in a lot of cases...

Now let's say you have 3 kids who are in college....that's going to hurt. No child tax credit and lose $20,000 in exemptions. Ouch.

This is me (well 2 kids in college). To boot I live in NJ and my tax deductions were capped at 10K, which kept me below the 24K in itemized deductions.

My company stopped giving bonuses last year which meant I earned about 7K less than 2017. Didn't change my withholdings at all. My net taxes end up being the same as last year, but because of my reduced earnings, they withheld less. Bottom line last year I got a $3K refund and this year I owe $3K...all while making $7K less in income. Oh, and they are trying to tack on an underpayment penalty. Grrrr....

 

[Sigmapolis]

That $24,000 standard deduction for MFJ was sure nice this year.

My wife and I are fairly high-income but have little for potential itemized deductions (we rent, not own, no kids yet, her students loans are paid off, etc.).

Therefore, the higher SD was all benefit for us.

 

[Cyclonepride]

My wife worked about 4 months last year, so I'm hoping that helps.

 

[CYdTracked]

Got my taxes done Monday and my tax refunds weren't that far off from last year. I'd have to go back and look what the exact amounts were but both my federal and state returns were maybe down a couple hundred each this year.

Had no major changes in things like dependents or withholdings. Both my spouse and I had more total taxable income this year due to OT worked, raises, and a bonus and we didn't max out our 529 college savings contributions like we did last year so that hurt us a little on the state taxes not deducting as much. Overall though our tax bill itself was less so with the new tax codes we still came out ahead on the year as be brought home more pay throughout the year while not seeing a big decrease in our return either.

I've always felt I'd rather come out closer to $0 dollars on refunds anyways because that just means we paid just the right amount of tax throughout the year instead of Uncle Sam getting an interest free loan from us. I know some people are always hoping for a big return every year but personally I'd rather just take that money home throughout the year and be able to put a little more monthly towards college savings or the house mortgage instead of just applying that as a lump sum towards one of those after I get the refund.

 

[DeereClone]

My effective rate .2% lower than last year on an AGI that was $8,000 higher.

 

[CycloneDaddy]

AGI increased 14% but ETR decreased slightly 0.57% to 13.79%. I took the standard deduction this year as we were just under the $24,000 for itemized deductions.

I do feel somewhat dumb for never doing the Iowa 529 till 2018. Both wife and I maxed it which saved us $1,000 in Iowa taxes. Lesson learned I guess.

 

[CyArob]

Looks like the tax changes saved me $900 compared to last year. Time to spend that on women and booze.

 

[cyfan92]

On 21% more income my wife and I paid $7 more to the feds in 2018 and $1,116 to Iowa.

My adjusted tax liability fell 3.3% YoY

 

[Mtowncyclone13]

After a business loss we ended up paying a 2.3% federal tax rate.

 

[Sigmapolis]

My effective rate .2% lower than last year on an AGI that was $8,000 higher.

AGI went up $26,000 and effective rate went down 1.74% -- mostly because of the higher standard deduction because we do not really have much for itemized ones.

 

[knowlesjam]

This is me (well 2 kids in college). To boot I live in NJ and my tax deductions were capped at 10K, which kept me below the 24K in itemized deductions.

My company stopped giving bonuses last year which meant I earned about 7K less than 2017. Didn't change my withholdings at all. My net taxes end up being the same as last year, but because of my reduced earnings, they withheld less. Bottom line last year I got a $3K refund and this year I owe $3K...all while making $7K less in income. Oh, and they are trying to tack on an underpayment penalty. Grrrr....

For those with kids going to college...the change is that you get a $500 tax credit for each kid in college assuming you take them as a dependent on your tax filing. However, you can also run into additional costs if they earned any income from jobs, capital gains, etc. Consider filing a separate tax filing for each one where they claim their dependency. Assuming they are under the minimums for filing single, they may be eligible for the American Opportunities Tax Credit where up to $2500 in expenses will be covered by the credit and you can receive up to a $1,000 refund even if you pay $0 in Fed Taxes.

Run through the math...it may pay off!

 

[Cyched]

Looks like the tax changes saved me $900 compared to last year. Time to spend that on women and booze.

No movies? Amateur

 

[JY07]

But the fact that there was such a disparity in my iowa return had me going elsewhere for my taxes. Because of this, I would NOT recommend credit karma.

I tried credit karma a year or two ago when it came out and it could barely cover just the basic scenarios; didn't even try this year.

Because of the scenario you outlined though I generally end up putting everything into a couple different sites just to make sure everything lines up at the end of the day.

From a federal standpoint, we owed money since we didn't withhold enough, but it looks like our ETR went down a decent clip: from 18.6% to 16.3%

 

[capitalcityguy]

For those that use Turbotax (and I'm sure other software packages do similar), the e-file summary page lists out your AGI taxable income, effective tax rate, etc. It is a quick way to compare yrs if interested.

Just got done with our taxes . The increased standard deduction was timely as this would have been our first year without mortgage interest to deduct so really needed the higher standard. Our effective tax rate went down a hair over 2% from 2017. We didn't have consistent income however, (we sold a pretty good chunk of stock last year to pay off our house- so income was down this year in comparison) so not real apples to apples comparison for our situation.

 

[Cyclonepride]

Got a small refund (which is perfect), but Iowa taxes pounded us.

 

[ianoconnor]

Iowa takes forever to issue refunds. Federal came in like 3 days.

 

[wxman1]

Iowa takes forever to issue refunds. Federal came in like 3 days.

Still waiting on both but it looks like I messed up something on the federal side as they requested some more info so I understand that side but WTF Iowa

Edit: It looks like Iowa does have a refund locator. For myself it says that the refund has been issued and should arrive in 14 days. It does not give a issue date though so it could be today it could be in two weeks.
https://www.idr.iowa.gov/wheresmyrefund/