TAxES!! oh no.

Unfortunatly the only suggestion I can make, is to get the 1040 (or whichever form it would be) and manually go through your taxes. I did my taxes manually to double check the results of TurboTax and came up with the same.

Sorry to hear you have to pay the IRS.

 

It happens once in a while, sometimes your earnings are very near to the next tax bracket, but your witholding is calculated at the lower bracket. and if you go over, you end up owing

 

Try TurboTax on the web - it's free until you give 'em your CC info and efile. It will ask you a LOT of questions, sniffing for deductions. Use the "bottom line" for your numbers

 

This can also happen if you have two jobs or if there are two of you working.

For example, if you have a part time job, you won't be making a lot of money at that one. But maybe you have a "day job" where you make a lot more. Each job withholds taxes as if that is your only income, but when they're added together it's more than either one, possibly putting you into a higher bracket.

Also, there is a point under which you wouldn't have to pay taxes. I don't know what it is anymore, and it can depend on your filing status, etc. But let's pretend that if you make under $5,000 you wouldn't pay taxes. That is figured into the withholding tables. But when you have two jobs, each one is "exempting" $5,000 (because they're using withholding tables and that's figured in). But when you file, you're only getting your first $5,000 exempt, so you are under-withheld.

With a husband and wife both working, you can still have the "layering" problem. For example, my husband is retired and working part time. So his withholding on his retirement assumes that is his entire income. So does his part time job. He might still be OK except for one thing--I make more than both of those put together! So when his two small incomes are "layered" on mine, we're always under-withheld. I have my employer withhold extra tax, on top of claiming zero dependents, so I don't have to pay at the end of the year.

 

I always do mine myself, in a spreadsheet. I don't trust TurboTax completely. It is good as long as you answer all of the questions correctly. But if you have a business or rental property and don't understand some of the questions completely it can throw you off.

Of course, I've had several tax courses, so I can do it without too much trouble.

You might want to sign up for a tax course at your local community college, just for the knowledge of how everything works.

I personally think they should teach this, as well as some budgeting and credit management courses, in high school.