DOing taxes online and Turbo tax is saying I should have paid $xx,xxx in taxes.
How do they get to that number?

next question, if the gooberment knows that is my magic number, then why didn't my employer take out that much, now I have a HUGE debt to pay!!!

UGH

this can't be right

Mo

They try to withhold an estimated about based purely on your income and number of dependents you list on your W4. Sometimes it's right, often it's not.

I owed almost $10k last year on top of the nearly $25k withholding if I recall. This year i only owed $1k which was a pleasant surprise.

Pretty sure you're the one responsible for declaring the dependents.
Did you sell any stocks or bonds this year, property maybe? Capital gains taxes will catch up with you if not careful.

It's not your employers responsibility to determine tax withholding.

I declare zero dependents... cause I have none. That should force them to take max taxes out. and I still owe over 10K worth?

You can have them withhold additional taxes.

If you're not a straight W2 employee, have a tax guy look at your docs and see if he can help you with additional deductions or credits. My tax guy saves me way more than he costs.

I have to claim single, no dependents and withhold a couple extra hundred bucks just to break even. I swear 30 cents of every dollar goes to support illegals and scammers.

I am a straight w2.. Should be simple, but when I put in the information it says I should have paid X amount, and company only withdrew A amount.. and now I have to pay XX,XXX amount.. just doesn't seem fair

You made some good money last year. Check the IRS tax tables. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040tt.pdf See what your total earnings were. (wages, investments, etc) vs. taxes owed. You obviously need to have additional taxes taken out of your pay to cover the shortage of taxes owed.

Your employer can definitely help you with that.

W4 withholding are based on that check alone and not your annual income. If you get paid weekly less taxes will come out as its a smaller check vs. getting paid monthly. Come the end of the year,. what you owe is what you owe regardless how much was withheld throughout the year.

single folks get bent over backwards. you need a LLC and find some writeoffs! Or start a church and donate all you money to the non profit church of bass gods.

I get no tax break for charitable donations.

Getting divorced my tax bill went up 3K per month not getting to file married. Luckily, I was forced to sell my home with a 3% interest rate and buy a new one with a 6.5% interest rate. All the interest is tax deductible! So, the extra $50K I paid in mortgage interest is a pure write off. Winning!

It is a "pure write off" if you exceed the standard deduction otherwise it is a moot point.

When working I always calculated what my taxes would be and claimed number of dependents and marital status on W4 to match that amount. If married and wife is working you normally need to bump up lower dependents and possibly claim single because wife's income will put you in a higher bracket.