So tax changes are getting more and more confusing, methinks.
Allow me to illustrate an example for you that has recently come to my attention - something that makes little to no sense but at the same time makes me very excited and happy.
For the tax year of 2003, my wife and I had witheld from our paychecks approximately $700. That’s all. Nothing more or less, just $700.
I got a call from the congregation member who’s preparing our taxes this year. I knew going into the situation that we’d likely get everything back in federal taxes, most everything back in state tax witholding, and (of course) have to pay in everything in city taxes to St. Louis.
He had a bunch of questions for me, and managed to say something at one point about how we ended up with zero tax liability on the year - which is, of course, good news. So I asked him how it was going with that and how much we were getting back from the federal return.
He said we were going to receive back approximately $3,200 from the federal gov’t. Well, that didn’t quite add up in my mind, or subtract down for that matter, so I looked into it.
The EIC and the Child Credit are refundable tax credits. If we end up getting everything back in the first place, we tack on the credits as some form of subsidy - which means we’re getting back from the system way more than we paid in. I would like to thank my son Joshua for this credit, without whom we would not be receiving nearly as much back from the government.
I can only hope that something like this applies to either of the states in which we lived last year, so that we will receive even more back from either or both sources.
I think it’s time to discuss with Amanda a little something I like to think of as a down payment to the Vicar Ryan J. Markel PowerBook Endowment.
