W-4 tax form help?

Question

My wife and I had a baby in June and I was wanting to get some advice on what to claim on my w-4. I would rather take it out of my check now then to have to pay in at the end of the year. What do you recommend I do in order to achive this?

Answer 1

You could claim four exemptions between you - the three people, then additional for the child tax credit.  Depending on circumstances you might be able to claim more, but I'd stick with four at most until you see how that works out at the end of the year.

Answer 2

If your wife is not working, then you claim married three exemptions.

Depending on what other deductions you have, you might be able to claim four - but that will depend on your unique situation.

Answer 3

On your tax return, you will claim 3 exemptions.

If you (between the two of you) have only one job (at a time), and don't have significant non-wage income (interest, dividends, capital gains, business), you should probably claim 4, or possibly 6, personal allowances, according to the W-4 instructions.

(This assumes your total income is less than $86,000.)

What I'd do is get a 2007 tax form or program, calculate what your taxes would be,  on that form, using 2008 income estimates (noting the child tax credit, any earned income credit you might be eligible for, etc.), and adjust your withholding so that the total amount withheld is near your estimated taxes.  I'd use a service such as paycheckcity.com to estimate your withholding  for different numbers of personal allowances claimed.

Answer 4

Go to the W4 Calculator at PayCheckCity, enter your data, and it will compute your withholding allowances:

http://www.paycheckcity.com/W4/w4instruc...