Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
It strikes me that you've been sensible. You kept your money, and then paid what you owed. Much better than lending the government your money, interest free, and then getting it back again  . |
That is what all the financial experts say as well, "...at best the goal is to owe and be owed nothing, at worst you should owe a small amount, which corresponds to an interest free loan from the government." In all honesty though, getting a nice check from a tax return is pretty nice, it lets people make some big purchases that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to save for if they got an extra $50 a month. Call it lack of discipline or whatever but I know I fall into that category.
The problem though like KK and VR mentioned is that the tax laws are sufficiently complex here that there really is no way to accurately take the right amount out every time. In order to take the right amount of taxes out for the whole year your employer would need to know how many dependents you have and will claim, how much mortgage interest you paid, how much money did you make from investments, did you have any one of a hundred other special cases .....
It seems like every month there is talk of tax reform here but it never goes anywhere since there are too many special interest groups involved that have their own little deductions they want to protect.