FEDERAL INCOME TAX WITHHOLDING

If you have not filed tax returns for several years, it may be difficult to know with certainty how much you should have withheld from your wages to cover your federal income taxes. The most common problem occurs with married filing jointly clients who are each claiming themselves, their spouse and all of their children.  This in effect doubles the amount of exemptions allowed on your W-4 form to “break even” on your tax liability. There are other factors such as home mortgage interest, charitable donations, property taxes and occasionally medical expenses that can affect the amount you really need to have withheld.

The only way to verify where you are at is to do a “pro forma” tax return for the current year and match that with your current withholdings. A pro form tax return is a return based on estimated figures that is close enough to pin point if you are obviously not withholding enough. If this is done midway through the current year, you have some time to catch up. If it is towards the end of the year, it may be impossible to catch up on the current year. If that is the case we will try to delay the settlement until after you have filed the current year taxes and then work out a settlement that will include the current year and all back tax liabilities.