Tax Refund - How much do YOU get?

[KatherineNaomi]

Reading some of the other threads on income tax refunds had me wondering. We have our withholdings adjusted so that we get almost nothing taken out for Federal income tax ($89) and we still get about a $5300 refund. DH makes $35,000 a year and we have 4 kids. Is this normal or are we just really poor??

[baileyandmikey]

Wow... that seems like alot. Dh works and makes about the same, but we have three kids, and don't take any withholdings and we don't get as much back as you.

[slsurface]

Originally Posted by baileyandmikey

Wow... that seems like alot. Dh works and makes about the same, but we have three kids, and don't take any withholdings and we don't get as much back as you.

same here.

[4kidlets4me]

I think its normal when you have 4 kids. I also have 4 and last year our refund was about 5k and we made close to 40k. In 2008 we made 53k so I'm expecting less of a refund but still somewhere between 3-4k. I know for us we get the full 4000 for the child tax credit which makes up most of the refund.

[nichole]

Maybe it is the earned income credit?

[beansmama]

That seems normal to me!

x-DH made over $40k last year. I was a sahm and we just have one kiddo. We got nearly $6,000. The 2 years before that it was just a little less (Around $5000+).

He claims 3 deductions (him, me, kiddo)...

This year i'm kinda dreading the tax refund though. We got divorced, I'm letting him claim Bean and we are splitting the refund. I doubt it'll be that high though due to no income on either of our ends (he's been on unemployment for awhile - his job shut down and he's back in college...).

Anyway, that's all i had to say

[Drummer's Wife]

sounds about right to me, too. I think the EIC is a big part of it. In 2007, DH made $38,000 and we got almost $5k back (4 kids). In years before, he made less money and of course, we had less kids but we've always counted on getting between 4-7K, depending on his income and expemptions he claimed all year long. Occasionally, we'd adjust them so that changed things up a bit.

For 2008, DH got a decent promotion so for the first time, we are not getting near that much back. When you make more, you definitely pay more in taxes (and don't get EIC) but we kept his exemptions lower than the allowed amount and will get a little more than 2k back. For this year, we are adjusting so that we are closer to breaking even. It depends on a number of factors, including other deductions you have (houses, medical expenses, etc.,)

[KatherineNaomi]

Originally Posted by nichole

Maybe it is the earned income credit?

I think that's a little over $1300 of it but the bulk of it is child tax credit.

[rebeccalynn]

Our goal is to be as close to $0 as possible. In reality, we have been slowly taking more and more allowances every year trying to get it down to $0 but have been getting a $1200 to $2000 refund mostly due to the irs calculator being weird and adding more children to our family. Finally this year, I think that our balance is going to be somewhere between -$200 to $200 but we are expecting another baby in July so we will have to adjust it yet again.

[ArtsyMomma]

Originally Posted by beansmama

That seems normal to me!

x-DH made over $40k last year. I was a sahm and we just have one kiddo. We got nearly $6,000. The 2 years before that it was just a little less (Around $5000+).

He claims 3 deductions (him, me, kiddo)...

This year i'm kinda dreading the tax refund though. We got divorced, I'm letting him claim Bean and we are splitting the refund. I doubt it'll be that high though due to no income on either of our ends (he's been on unemployment for awhile - his job shut down and he's back in college...).

Anyway, that's all i had to say

I'm in the same boat. Last year we filed married (we hadn't completed our separation yet) earned about 45K combined and got about a 7000 refund. This year, I have no idea. I didn't have a large income this year, and we haven't quite worked out what we plan to do regarding the taxes yet.

[songbird45]

I teach music on the side, so I always end up owing several thousand dollars. we adjusted our withholdings last year so we were paying more with each paycheck, so hopefully we'll owe less this time around.