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I just stared a part time position and chose married, zero in my W4 (I'm married, wife does not work, I file a married joint return). Two paychecks later, first one had no federal taxes withheld, the second has a dollar and change. Should I change it to single zero to take out fed taxes?
How much to you make per hour?
How many Hours do your work per week/Pay period?
Do you have other income, Social Security? Pension? Large Interest/dividends/capital gains? Rental income?
While the personal data requested above may affect the balance, tax owed, refund or no refund at the end of the year, I don't see how it can affect how much federal tax is deducted from my paycheck.
If I were you, I'd check with payroll first to make sure they entered it correctly. Little to no withholdings doesn't sound right especially with zero allowances.
There is also a field on the W4 where you can list an additional flat amount you want held out. So you could leave it married,0, but put that you want whatever they would normally hold out + $20 held from each check (or whatever number you want).
It sounds like your checks are small enough that you are falling under the threshold for withholding.
FYI, those limits, if your employer uses the charts (for 2014), for married, claiming 0 were:
Weekly pay schedule: up to $165 gross
Biweekly pay schedule: up to $330 gross
Semimonthly pay schedule: up to $360 gross
Monthly pay schedule: up to $720 gross
So depending on your payday frequency, if you gross less than that amount, $0 is the correct amount to hold from your check. If you are making more than that, and having $0 held out, something is wrong.
While the personal data requested above may affect the balance, tax owed, refund or no refund at the end of the year, I don't see how it can affect how much federal tax is deducted from my paycheck.
But it will help determine if you should have more withheld from your paycheck.
If this is your only income and you won't make enough over the course of the year to have to pay taxes anyway, I'd leave it alone.
If it's supplementary income, leaving your withholdings as they are with this job will either reduce your refund or require you to pay more at tax time.
If you have set your withholdings on other income (or estimated payments for 1099 income) to make your tax refund/payment as close to zero as possible and the income from this job is going to push you to owing a significant amount, you should probably increase your withholding to stay off of the IRS's radar.
But otherwise there's no right or wrong answer here, only opinions. And to get a reasonable opinion requires more information.
If I were you, I'd check with payroll first to make sure they entered it correctly. Little to no withholdings doesn't sound right especially with zero allowances.
It's actually not uncommon at all for a part-time job. I've had several over the years where I've only worked 5-10 hours a week that have withheld nothing at all, ever.
While the personal data requested above may affect the balance, tax owed, refund or no refund at the end of the year, I don't see how it can affect how much federal tax is deducted from my paycheck.
You get to choose how much is withheld from your pay check.
That's why the information is relevant. You asked if you should change it. The only way to know if you should change it is to know if you're going to wind up owing a lot of taxes at the end of the year. Ideally you want your withholding to match up perfectly so that you get a very small refund if any.
If you owe no taxes, then No, you don't need to change it because you don't need to have a higher withholding. If you have other income sources that aren't subject to withholding, you may find that by keeping your withholding level lower means you owe a lot come tax time because you haven't withheld enough to meet the tax obligations.
That said...
It's extremely common for people with multiple jobs(or who change jobs mid year) to not have enough withheld because your new job will assume it's your only source of employment. Because you started your new job at the end of the year, they calculated that you're probably not going to make enough to owe any taxes, so nothing was withheld. I suspect that your pay checks this year have higher withholding than the ones from last year.
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