I can be a tad forgetful at times. I was a LOT forgetful right around this time last year, and I'll be paying for it in April... literally.
My previous employer decided last January that they wanted to change their pay structure from paying two weeks in arrears (get your check two weeks after the pay period ends) to paying one week in arrears (get your check one week after the pay period ends). What wound up happening was that we had a check in January that had three weeks of pay on it.
Of course the IRS didn't know that the pay on that check was for three weeks rather than two, and would tax that check as though it was your normal two-week paycheck. Still with me here? Basically, it would have bumped me up to a higher tax bracket in the eyes of the feds, even though my salary hadn't changed.
What I did to ensure that I wouldn't have to bend over to the IRS and lose a good chunk of that money was to fiddle with my deductions such that I would keep almost that entire check. My intent was to do that, then go back to my normal deduction.
Ummmm, yeah. I forgot.
When I finally remembered, some time in March, bonus time was just around the corner, and my former employer adds bonuses to your normal check rather than cutting a separate one. Rather than go back to my normal deduction and have to bend over to the feds for taxes on my bonus, I chose to leave my deductions as they were, so I could keep most of that check as well. Bottom line, there was very little in the way of Federal tax deducted from my paycheck for about three and a half months.
Oops.
I have not yet received my W2 from my former employer, but I was able to locate my next-to-last pay stub from them. According to preliminary calculations based on almost-complete numbers, we'll owe the feds almost $1000 come April 15th. Ouch. I don't exactly have a grand laying around in the bank, nor do I have the means to pull it out of my arse anytime soon.
HOWEVER, my saving grace comes from the state of Wisconsin. Since I only changed the designation on my federal taxes last year, my state deductions were not affected. According to preliminary calculations based on almost-complete numbers (here we go again), the refund we'll get from the state *almost* covers the amount we owe the feds. The remainder is an amount that I certainly *can* manage to pull out of my arse by April 15th.
Phew!!
So... the plan is to file our state return the day I get the one W2 we're waiting for, put that refund check away and use it toward paying the feds. That way we're only out a semi-manageable amount of money.
Now of course, I have a zillion thoughts running through my head about how much we WOULDN'T owe the feds if I quit my job, had a baby, we went on "the dole" and survived on Bryan's income plus gov't. subsidies, but that'll just make me angry, and someone on one of my favorite message boards recently said something along the lines of "when you start to get angry, just shut the f*** up." That works for me.
Posted by beenie at January 26, 2005 08:42 PM