I'm 28 and single, I pay rent and car payment. How many allowances can I claim on my taxes?

Question

I live in California

Answer 1

Rent and car payments are not relevant to the number of allowances you can claim.

Go to the W4 assistant (link below), enter your data and the site will compute a suggested number of allowances for withholding purposes.

Answer 2

The goal in choosing the number of allowances to claim on your W4 is to have the correct amount withheld for taxes, so that you don't end up either paying in a significant sum at the end of the year or having more withheld than you needed to.

If you are single and have no dependents, you'll have only one exemption to claim when you file your taxes next spring.  Your best bet is probably to claim single and one exemption; this should result in an appropriate level of withholding.  (If you're nervous about whether that will result in enough being withheld, you can claim zero exemptions instead.  I would never suggest claiming more exemptions than you actually have, however.)