How did you fair off this year on income taxes?

[MonkeyMama]

Married Filing Joint
Federal tax: $4,100 ($1,000 refund)
State tax: $800 (owe $50)

Our state was insolvent many years, so I try not to get refunds from state.

I generally try to breakeven with IRS, which is easy to do because we have a simple tax situation. But in recent years have been trying to hit "breakeven" if we did ROTH IRAs. If we do Traditional IRAs, we take the refund and invest it. This year was complicated though because my spouse worked all year (very seasonal/part-time) and I just didn't withhold any taxes from his check. Our "Traditional IRA tax savings" was far more substantial than $1,000.

[disneysteve]

I'm jealous of the folks who are able to get their taxes done and over with by this point in January. We won't even have all of our paperwork until probably the middle or 3rd week of February. I will try my best to have everything in place other than that so that once that arrives, we'll be good to go.

[Thrif-t]

I'm waiting for DH's W-2, hopefully tomorrow and then I can get them done on Saturday. I'm expecting a refund also because of the AOTC. I have 2 in college so I hope it's 5k. I always tried not to owe or get a refund from the fed and adjusted my withholding's accordingly.

I don't have to wait on any paperwork from anyone because we keep everything in Roth IRA's, its simplified our taxes so much

[creditcardfree]

I'm jealous of the folks who are able to get their taxes done and over with by this point in January. We won't even have all of our paperwork until probably the middle or 3rd week of February. I will try my best to have everything in place other than that so that once that arrives, we'll be good to go.

This was the earliest I have ever filed since I was a teenager. Only needed W2, two interest statements and tuition statement (1098-T) the university sends out. They were all available online late last week.

[rennigade]

I used H&R block this year...same as last. Its nice when you do it online...you can enter whatever forms you have...save...then come back when new forms show up. We inputted everything except one form my wife is waiting for.

Im not sure what our state is going to be but it appears we're going to owe around $370 to federal. We would have gotten a small refund but we had to claim $1300 from checking account sign up bonuses I can live with that.

[sv2007]

I think we had to pay $50k more into taxes for 2015 just a few months ago. Don't know about 2016; but I can't remember getting any refunds for years.

[TexasHusker]

I'm paying about $64K.

[StormRichards]

Federal refund $874
State owed $14

[tripods68]

I'm curious what's everyone's Effective Tax rate? I've been averaging 13.7% for the past 10 years.

Like Steve we are still in the waiting game for those 1099s.

[StormRichards]

I'm curious what's everyone's Effective Tax rate? I've been averaging 13.7% for the past 10 years.

Like Steve we are still in the waiting game for those 1099s.

Ours was 12.99%

[corn18]

Federal effective tax rate is 31%. Total effective tax rate is 36%. Total marginal tax rate is 56%. That's why I'm not too worried about my wife getting a job now that we are empty nesters. Making $0.44 on the dollar is not worth the hassle of working just for the sake of working. So she volunteers instead doing things she enjoys. First world problems.

[bigdaddybus]

effective tax rate of 18%
$267 state refund
own $4954 to the Fed

[bigdaddybus]

Scottrade sends 1099's on FEB 15th. I assume I will owe or be close to breaking even so I wont do mine till April.

Just checked this week and 1099's were available earlier than previous years.

[disneysteve]

Just checked this week and 1099's were available earlier than previous years.

Yep. I already got mine.

[tripods68]

We earned more in 2016 compared to 2015. But paid lowered Federal + Ca State Tax by $3081 compared to 2015 due to increased pretax contributions to 457 & 401K plan on top of our mandatory pension contributions.

Federal Adjusted Gross = 145K
Federal Tax Refund = 2982
CA State Refund = 630
Effective tax = 14.8%

Total Tax Paid $18,258 ($13,709 Fed + $4,549 CA State)

The key is continue to sock away more pretax money to pay less in Taxes even with increased income. We can definitely improve to continue to be tax efficient in 2017.