2018 Tax Survey

Did your 2018 tax as a percentage of taxable income go up or down compared to 2017?

  • It went up.

    Votes: 22 40.7%
  • It went down.

    Votes: 31 57.4%
  • It stayed the same.

    Votes: 1 1.9%
  • It stayed the same because I voluntarily paid more in taxes than required.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    54
  • Poll closed .
As a percentage, down.

However like some have stated, my non reimbursable business expenses are usually right on the cusp of the automatic deduction for a family...so we'll see. I pretty much pay every year. Some years less, and some years more. Like some have said, I'd rather pay in at the end of the year than give free loans to the Government.
May not have to worry about that as much next year tho....I'll have different tax issues instead - crossing my fingers.
 
Isn't that what I have?
Not questioning your intent, just the choice of words. You refer to 'taxable income' which is different than total income. On the 1040, adjustments and deductions are done first, that generates 'taxable income'. Example...student loan interest deduction is an adjustment to total income(you don't have to itemize to get it), itemizing or standard deduction is a deduction from total income.

You can see that dividing tax liability by 'taxable income' would then give you a deceptively higher effective rate. In the process it would be ignoring the tax policy that allows those adjustments and deductions that are a benefit to you.
 
It has nothing to do with the "refund." What was your taxes paid/income earned last year and this year?

Yes it does have to do with refund. What "tax benefit" did I gain if Trump took $2000 less per year out of my pay in federal taxes but eliminated the $2000 refund I used to get back in at the end of the year? It's a shell game, not a tax benefit. Least wise for me.
 
I'd note that the goal is not to get a refund. Wouldn't you rather have the money now, than give the government a free loan? As long as you didn't have pay additional taxes, and you saw less taken out throughout the year, I'd call that a win.

Yes technically I agree, but I kind of used it as a forced way to save. It was the money I used for my summer well. With a reduced refund this year, I'm going to have to sell blood to get enough money to afford the well for my forty footer. Life's just not fair!
 
I chose Taxable Income (which is Line #43 on the 2017 forms) because that is net of all exemptions, deductions, etc. One point of contention on the Trump Tax law was that people were complaining that SALT were being limited to $10,000. So to determine if the changes were good or bad, you need to take everything to which you were entitled in the old and new way. If you just took total income and divided that into your tax liability, it doesn't answer the question.

I stand by my calculations :D

I am not an accountant, but the math isn't that hard.
 
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Yes it does have to do with refund. What "tax benefit" did I gain if Trump took $2000 less per year out of my pay in federal taxes but eliminated the $2000 refund I used to get back in at the end of the year? It's a shell game, not a tax benefit. Least wise for me.

So you're not a fan of the tax law changes. But you never answered the question asked.....have you run the numbers?
 
Yes it does have to do with refund. What "tax benefit" did I gain if Trump took $2000 less per year out of my pay in federal taxes but eliminated the $2000 refund I used to get back in at the end of the year? It's a shell game, not a tax benefit. Least wise for me.

You can always withhold more.
 
Hearing some of these stories is making me nervous. I'm seeing images of me pushing a shopping cart down the road picking up cans, on a positive note at least I'll lose some weight and able to fit all those pants stacked up in the closet.:)
 
So just got our tax papers back from the CPA today so I ran the calculations. 2017 our tax liability as a percentage of taxable income was 13.55% and we itemized. Last year we had about $17,000 in write offs. This year we took the standard deduction. Our income went up about $5000 and our taxable income went up about $6000 but our tax liability was about $700 less this year. Our tax liability this year was 11.45% of our taxable income so we were better off by just over 2% under the new tax structure.

2017: 13.55%
2018: 11.45%
 
Not bad! The benefit that is harder to measure is what the tax cuts have done for jobs and the economy overall. More people have jobs now so they are spending more money. People spend money and business makes more. Dividends were pretty good for 2018.
 
So just got our tax papers back from the CPA today so I ran the calculations. 2017 our tax liability as a percentage of taxable income was 13.55% and we itemized. Last year we had about $17,000 in write offs. This year we took the standard deduction. Our income went up about $5000 and our taxable income went up about $6000 but our tax liability was about $700 less this year. Our tax liability this year was 11.45% of our taxable income so we were better off by just over 2% under the new tax structure.

2017: 13.55%
2018: 11.45%

Thank you Boatman37!!!!
 
This is all well and good....But, while I'm happy people's individual tax bit might be down, it's not really relevant when you don't pay your bills... My point is, when we have a massive deficit and national debt, don't be patting yourself on the back just yet.

Don't misunderstand, I'll be happy with a lower total tax rate...I really don't like even contributing to a fiscally irresponsible broken system...Seriously, if we are just going to kick our problems down the road for future generations, why not just reduce everyone's taxes by 10%? Why not a 20% reduction?....Congrats, right? Problem is spending is still out of control... The bill is going to come due.... In my opinion, our legislature has a fiscal fiduciary responsibility to provide sound fiscal decisions and start reducing our debt. I'd be happy to pay my share to make this country truly fiscally strong...Until then, I'm not sure what we are talking about.

If we had a system where our tax bills covered our annual budget and included paying down the debt and we were able to do that at a lower effective rate....Then I'll be high-fiving...
 
This is all well and good....But, while I'm happy people's individual tax bit might be down, it's not really relevant when you don't pay your bills... My point is, when we have a massive deficit and national debt, don't be patting yourself on the back just yet.

Don't misunderstand, I'll be happy with a lower total tax rate...I really don't like even contributing to a fiscally irresponsible broken system...Seriously, if we are just going to kick our problems down the road for future generations, why not just reduce everyone's taxes by 10%? Why not a 20% reduction?....Congrats, right? Problem is spending is still out of control... The bill is going to come due.... In my opinion, our legislature has a fiscal fiduciary responsibility to provide sound fiscal decisions and start reducing our debt. I'd be happy to pay my share to make this country truly fiscally strong...Until then, I'm not sure what we are talking about.

If we had a system where our tax bills covered our annual budget and included paying down the debt and we were able to do that at a lower effective rate....Then I'll be high-fiving...
Buckle up, going by last years numbers we'd need a 1.3 trillion swing to just hold even.
 
This is all well and good....But, while I'm happy people's individual tax bit might be down, it's not really relevant when you don't pay your bills... My point is, when we have a massive deficit and national debt, don't be patting yourself on the back just yet.

Don't misunderstand, I'll be happy with a lower total tax rate...I really don't like even contributing to a fiscally irresponsible broken system...Seriously, if we are just going to kick our problems down the road for future generations, why not just reduce everyone's taxes by 10%? Why not a 20% reduction?....Congrats, right? Problem is spending is still out of control... The bill is going to come due.... In my opinion, our legislature has a fiscal fiduciary responsibility to provide sound fiscal decisions and start reducing our debt. I'd be happy to pay my share to make this country truly fiscally strong...Until then, I'm not sure what we are talking about.

If we had a system where our tax bills covered our annual budget and included paying down the debt and we were able to do that at a lower effective rate....Then I'll be high-fiving...

Every time there has been a tax cut (from JFK in the 60's forward) the result was an increase in total revenue the government received from taxes.

Tax cut is a valid tool to increase revenue.

You are correct - we still have a spending problem.
 
There are few things I will guarantee, one of them is fiscal sanity will never come back and they will ride the borrowing horse until it is lame and the country is bankrupt.

MM
 
Every time there has been a tax cut (from JFK in the 60's forward) the result was an increase in total revenue the government received from taxes.

Tax cut is a valid tool to increase revenue.

You are correct - we still have a spending problem.
As Boat Guy has said, Washington has been kicking the can, to the point we have more than a spending problem now. Snap your fingers so we had a balanced budget in 2018 and the National Debt still grew by .5 Trillion.

If we proceeded with balance budgets from now on our National Debt would continue to grow. It's a safe bet that it'll grow even faster in the future due to rising costs of financing. This chart shows the weighted average interest rate on our outstanding debt, from GAO 2018 Audit.
Debt interest rate.JPG
 
Good point.

Consider the impact on the deficit we are carrying if/when interest rates rise.

We have been in a world of artificially low interest rates due to the Quantitative Easing policies under the previous administration.
 

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