by Beks
Is it just me or is our tax refund taking an ETERNITY to get here!?!?
Sigh…
This week?
My sanity relies on it.
Are you expecting a refund this year? Or were you smart and set your witholdings to only what you owe?
Beks is a full-time government employee who enjoys blogging late into the night after her four kids have gone to sleep. She’s been married to Chris, her college sweetheart, for 15 years. In 2017, after 3 long years working the Dave Ramsey Baby Steps, they paid off more than $70K and became debt free. When she’s not working or blogging, she’s exploring the great outdoors.
My husband hasn’t even started ours and it is driving me crazy. I remind (nag) him about it EVERYDAY. Usually he has them done by Feb 1st…why is he taking so long?? AHHHHHH!!
Amy
crazyclutterlady.blogspot.com
I owed $20 to the feds and received $100 back from the state. I was VERY happy.
Still waiting on a 1099 (small family business)! We are expecting a $2,000 refund, but next year it will probably be closer to $0. I changed our W-4 to reflect 9 exemptions (even though there are only 5 people in the household). I didn’t know you could have more expemtions than people until I read the rules.
We got a refund this year. My husband started a new job and he apparently estimated the withholding wrong, AND I started working on my Master’s degree and we got a lot back from the education credit. BUT we got the refund yesterday.
Canadian 2011 income taxes aren’t due until April 30th but I’ll be filing online ASAP once we both have our 2011 income statements from work – trouble is they aren’t legally required to provide them until the last day of February. I have mine but we’re waiting on his. Contributions to our RRSPS (registered retirement savings plan) up to Feb 29th are considered part of 2011 so I’ll likely make one more contribution on a day when the markets are doing a swan dive. Since I keep track of our retirement contributions on my spreadsheet and I’m filing electronically I don’t really need to wait for the tax statements from the broker.
We set up our witholdings based on what we know will definitely happen, not what will probably happen. Any RRSP contributions made through payroll deductions (to get the employer match) are tax adjusted at source so theroetically they shouldn’t generate a refund or balance owing. Most of our deductions that would cause a refund are things which normally happen but aren’t carved in stone so I would never adjust our witholding anticipating that they would happen. Beyond his contributions at work, my husband contributes at least $12k to MY RRSP so he gets the deduction and my balance is increased. His account got way ahead of mine a few years ago when he got lay off severance package equal to 1yr of salary. We’ve been trying to rebalance our accounts since then. Since my husband is in the 43% tax bracket and I’m only in the 31% bracket it makes more sense for him to make the contribution. A $12k contribution will net him a $5160 refund. If I contributed the identical amount to my own account I’d get a $3720 refund. Once he’s contributed enough to get down to the same tax bracket as me, then it doesn’t matter which of us makes the contribution, but it still goes to my account to continue rebalancing. The funds come out of the joint account where all our money is pooled and normally I log into his account and make the contribution to myself. What goes on behind the scenes doesn’t matter to the tax collector, they just need to see him contributing to my retirement account and we get a bigger refund. As the lower income earner I have to claim any sport/cultural fees for the kids so my refund usually never amounts to more than a few hundred dollars depending how many eligible lessons/camps they did in the year. In the years they were in daycare I got big refunds – 31% of $9600 ($200/wk) came to nearly $3k.
In the ~25yrs I’ve been filing taxes I got to claim medical expenses once in a year when I went to the U.S. for surgery. There is a minimum threshold you have to be over before you can claim anything and that was the one time the math worked. All the hospital costs were billed directly to my provincial health plan, but I could claim for mileage, 3 weeks of hotel and meals for my support person, and meals for myself for the two weeks I had to remain in the US after release from hospital. All of that put me over the minimum threshold and then I could claim everything else for that year that normally wouldn’t add up to enough (ie. the $17 I had to cover between the real dentist bill and what my work health plan reimbursed.) With our basic healthcare costs covered I have no idea how many people are actually able to claim medical costs – I just know it’s not even on my radar normally.
In Canada mortgage interest isn’t a tax write off – maybe that’s why there’s no incentive to let them drag on. I’ve never known anyone to start with longer than 25yrs, and by the time you increase to weekly or biweekly payments, round the normal payment up, and make extra payments every year, there’s really no reason it should take longer than 15yrs. Well, unless you really love paying interest, or just took on too much mortgage (ie. the full amount they qualified you for!)
My US federal came back in a week! Record time this year! My state refund (which is always teeny tiny) is taking FOREVER though. I filed Jan. 26th and I don’t even get an “update” until Fen. 24th. That’s crap! 🙂
My federal return took about 2 weeks, but that was due because I had to mail in some special paperwork. But my state came within the week. And with it the money, I was able to set up my snowball payments.
My June Job loss threw us off a bit. I liquidated part of my ROTH to pay down debt in case it took forever to find a new job. With the debt gone we could make a run of it on Hubby’s salary alone. Fortunately I was able to find a good job and now we have the tax implication of the ROTH liquidation. But we are Ok with this. With out that step, we’d have gotten just under $700 back. We feel better off in the long run and the job loss really shook up Hubby enough for him to finally fully climb on the debt reduction band wagon.
My tax return took exactly a week to hit my bank, I was amazed at how quick, but my son’s, who I filed a few days before mine, hasn’t deposited into his bank yet. IRS says today for him, but nothing yet. His has been over 2 weeks now.
I filed on 2/5, and the website I used said that my refund should be in my bank account by 2/15. It’s still not there…
I actually made a mistake. Usually I have it to where we only get a few hundred back from the feds. This year I owe $135. I had received a settlement check that pushed me over since no taxes were taken out. It was a payroll settlement is why taxes where supposed to come out.
Filed 2/3/12. Waited FOREVER to have it come up on the “where’s my refund” website. Now it says it will be there 3/6/12. REALLY? It’s not a lot but it’s my money and I want it back. It never used to take this long… I read that the identity theft software caused problems this year.
Like JMK, I’m a Canadian. I will not get all my paperwork for my taxes until February 28th. My RRSP stuff is in so it is is just a matter of my T4 and my T4A. I expect to get somewhere between $700 and $1000 back. I shan’t put in towards my debt thought. I work sessionally for a private school – 6 weeks off on vacation. My vacation pay and the tax refund will cover me for my vacation.
I had mine set based on what I got back last year. However, I forgot that I was able to claim both of my kids last year and would only be claiming one this year.
Also got married last year and that kind of messed with a lot of things with hubby’s income. We’re paying in a crap ton of money. I’ve already changed the amount they take out so that I’m not in this position again next spring.