Why Do We Owe More Taxes When Filing Jointly?

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pL4y3r85

New Member
Hey everyone,

So my husband and I are super late on our taxes this year because my W-4s got screwed up at work, and I didn’t realize hardly any federal taxes were being taken out.

Long story short: If I file without claiming our kid, I owe $11k. If he files with his kid and our kid, he ends up with a $10k refund. But when we file together with everything, we still owe $8.6k. The math just doesn’t add up, and I’m totally lost.

We’re probably gonna file separately and use his refund to cover mine, but we’ll still owe a bit. I just don’t get it.
 
Hey, something similar happened to me! We ended up owing around $7,500 and planned to pay it off the next year. I filed as single with zero withholdings, but we still filed jointly because it gave us better tax breaks. It actually bumped us up into a higher tax bracket. I’d definitely suggest talking to a tax pro.
 
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