You bet your ass

I need to make a slight correction in my numbers. I forgot to add in pretax retirement benefits. Effective tax rate is more like 13%.

put that in your right wing and smoke it.

TurboTax has a line that says my Effective Tax Rate is 6.40%. This means I am either in the 1% and all my money is hidden over seas, or I make less then the poverty line and they feel bad for me. Unfortunately it is the second reason. I really need to start working full time this year.

Interesting. Except for the 0%, I think I know where most posters fall in this.

Should have included several negative % options in the poll, seems like most people I know get massive tax credits.

Pretty sure I'm around 3-5%. Single, low income, with lots of schedule a deductions.

* edit - Just checked the numbers and I'm paying 6%

I was working on my taxes for the last hour. I'm anticipating finishing around the 15-16% range this year.

In 2010, I received a long term capital gains loss statement the day after filing. I've yet to file the amended return...but have 3 years to do so. (Since Uncle Sam isn't getting any more money from my loss, I'm not sure it's high on his priority list either.) This brings light to a question, though. Should I include the capital loss carryover on my 2011 return although it is not currently represented on my 2010 return? OR do I file the 2010 amended return now along with the 2011 return?

I've learned this year that our tax system is way to complicated. First time homeowner, marriage, cap gain carryovers, grad school, charitable contributions, interest in and out,...ahyayyay my brain hurts! Should get some cash back this year, which should mean we can adjust our take home pay for next year to boot!

If it were me, and you don't need the return of your tax overpayment in the near-term, I would consider filing an extension for 2011 and the amended return for 2010.

I would also ask yourself if the time, aggravation and mistakes are worth the $200 - $300 per year you are saving by not using a CPA. I would think, in Chicago, you also are likely to have state and possibly city taxes on top of Federal as well.

I agree. In fact, I used a tax service for 2009 to learn what i needed to file the and then H&R block deluxe at home in 2010. Im going to call a local tax attorney today to get their take. The refund will go to home improvements this spring...

If you know the tax attorney, give him a call. If you are just pulling a name from the Yellow Pages (.com?), then I would offer an alternative:

Ask some of your more professional friends (or parents' friends, depending on your age) for a referral to a CPA that they would recommend.

I think most of the users on this board are as capable as most of the people at H&R Block for answering computer-prompted questions and filling in questionaires. In my experience, they have not been a real "value add."

Taxed:
Base Pay: $75,804
Flight Pay: $7800
Flight Bonus: $20,833
$104,437

Untaxed:
Housing: $31,104
Subsistence: $2879.04
$33,983

I put $15k into TSP, $5k into an IRA, and claim 1 exception:
Gross: $138,420
W2: $88,648.34
Tax Withheld: $16,837
%age: 19%

We are 4 years into a 30yr loan 6%/$360k, and have 2 kids, but rent the house for $2k a month which covers the mortgage. I claim some business expenses and a small amount of donations... usually under $2k though. I am a resident of Florida and have no state income tax.

FINAL:
8.8% = $7800... and got an $8k return.

We've used H&RBlock for the past 4 years after TurboTax royally fucked us 2 years in a row. I really can't complain about making as much as I do and still paying single-digits. What I can't understand is why I'm so damned poor!

I definitely need to move to FL or TX. VA is just milking me for 5.25% and I'm only there for a few weeks a year, if that.

Federal “ income tax” is not the only income tax you send to the federal government. Your tax return doesn’t include Social security and Medicare tax% withheld from both you and your employer on your earned income. Self-employed people get to see all the tax at once when they file a return so they can get the shock of reality. For most people making below ~100k the actual % of revenue they send to the federal government is closer to 15.3% of their gross income plus the percentage shown on their tax return. The payroll tax holiday last year took 2% off the employee portion making it 13.3%. It is taken out before any deductions even 401k contributions.

Look at your W-2 take the FICA withholdings, double the number because it only shows half of your compensation % sent to the federal government add it to income taxes paid on your tax return then recalculate your real federal tax %.

For obscenely rich people the FICA percentage is neglagable because it stops at a little over 100k and it is not withheld on un earned income from dividends and capital gains.

Bob

I can't remember my login info for taxslayer.com, so can't access my return to get the numbers (yeah I know, I should have printed it).

Anyway.

Taxable: (only taxed half of the year due to deployment)
Base pay: 31,440
Incentive pay: 3,600
Totes: 35,040

Untaxed:
Subsistence: 3,900
Housing: 13,500
Total: 17,400

Grand total: 52,440

I don't feel like looking up any other figures, but I got a $7800 refund. EIC x2, some money into my Roth, mortgage interest.

So everyone is using the same metrics, that's your taxes owed (correctly identified above by Joe as line 61 on the 2011 form and 60 on the 2010 form) divided by AGI?

[Edited by me.] Relatively high savings rate?

For the self-employed, they do get to deduct half of the self-employment tax resulting in (theoretically) the same approximate net effect as employees.

That's the orange. Useful to compare against other oranges, less so the "apples" most often reported (and even less so the "grapes" or marginal bracket rates most people think of when they hear tax rates).

Very true. And, a mid-year cancellation of the payroll tax holiday would adversely affect lower and middle income citizens more than the top income earners because they max that payment in the first portion of the year.

You are better at this game than I am, because I cannot figure out how 44% of the people in the poll have effective federal income tax rates as a percentage of their AGI* over 25% with 3 of them being 35%+.

* Line 61 divided by line 38 on the 2011 return

Either people are making apples to oranges to grapes comparisons or they are in need of some serious financial and tax planning advice (or I am having the dumb and overlooking something obvious).

probably high income renters.

15% and owe monies.

Assume AGI of $300k, single, no kids, standard deduction (i.e. no itemizing due to mortgages, charitable gifting, etc).

That should put the taxable income somewhere around $290,500. Self-employment, pass-through income, etc will tweak this somewhat.

That puts the marginal rate at 33% and ballpark Federal income tax at $80,762.

$80,762 / $300,000 = 26.9%

Sorry if I wasn't clear... I paid a total of $7800 in Federal tax this year, which is 8.8% of my taxable income. Between my investments/mortgage/kids, I was essentially able to halve the amount I paid in taxes this year. I could claim more exceptions and have less money taken from my paychecks, and not have as big of a refund. And I don't have the vocabulary to decipher what Joe was saying.

And yes, I've managed to "save" over $20k this year between TSP/IRA/Investments. But my wife really handles all this ----. I can't wait until she goes back to work and we're in a stable housing situation... then I will be back in the Miata "game".

I think its total BS to not count all the revenue the federal government takes from your earnings. Working people all the way down to the dirt poor pay a considerable amount of federal taxes not included in there tax return. People making significantly more than 100k or with huge amounts of un-earned income do not.

Apples to apples, is the total amount the federal government took from you divided by the total amount you made as income.

I realize that is not the number right wingers like to use, because they like to make it look like nobody pays taxes but the wealthy but that is just not true.

Bob