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2008 Taxes

April 18th, 2009 at 08:03 pm

I finished the taxes a couple of weeks ago, but only now am getting around to blogging the results.

Gross Income: $244k
Adjusted Gross Income: $229k
Taxable Income: $157k
Total Federal Tax: $44k
Payments: $38k
Federal Tax due: $6k
Effective Federal Tax Rate: 13.94%

State Taxable income: $180k
Total State Tax: $11.6k
Payments: $12k
State Tax refund: $397
Effective State Tax Rate: 9.3%

We paid 110% of last years tax and so did not have a penality. California is holding on to refunds this year so I showed them by applying the refund to my 2009 estimated tax payments.

The difference between gross income and adjusted gross income came from self-employment tax adjustment ($5k) and IRA-SEP contribution ($14.5k). I'm not sure how it figures into the numbers on the W-2, but DH also contributed $15.5k to his 401k.

Income was as follows:
DH salary: $120k
DH bonus: $20k
DH ESPP sales: $5k
DH stock options sales: $6k
My business income: $77k
Dividends: $9k
Capital Gains: $4k
Interest: $500

DH did same-day sales on his employee stock purchase plan and stock options, so they were taxed as income. With the stock market so crazy it seemed better to take a profit immediately instead of holding the stock for a year. We paid more taxes, but didn't run the risk of losing money on the stock.

Here are our deductions:
Medical expenses: $15.7k
State income taxes: $14k
Property taxes: $6.6k
Mortgage interest: $19.6k
Charity: $500
Total Deductions: $56k

Self-employment tax was $11k.
We got hit with AMT this year -- $2k.

We recaptured $9.5k from AMT carryover, and have $9.5k credit left to carryover to next year. (In 2000 I had to pay $40k in AMT due to selling some stock options and holding the stock, and I've been slowly recapturing the credit ever since. Looks like next year or so I may finally finish recapturing it.)

For next year, to avoid penalities we have to pay $38k. DH's withholding is going to be about $13k, so our federal estimate taxes will be $6,300 per quarter.

Our state estimated taxes are $12.8k. DH's withholding comes to $4,875. I'm not sure why the payments are different amounts, but Turbo Tax said our state quarterly payments will be $2000, $2400, $1600, and $1600.

It's hard to predict what the actual 2009 taxes will be. DH's company gave big bonuses last year instead of pay raises. This year pay is frozen and there are no bonuses, so that's at least $20k less in income. My income is likely to be $5k less because we're taking a 3 week vacation. It's likely the stock options will be underwater, so no income there. It's completely unpredictable what dividends and capital gains will be. We won't have the medical deduction next year. AMT recapture will be somewhere between $5-$10k. Our taxes have gotten too complicated to get a good estimate from online calculators -- I never know what's going to happen until I run the final numbers through Turbo Tax.

1 Responses to “2008 Taxes”

  1. monkeymama Says:
    1240153455

    Zetta - California now requires that you pay in your estimated taxes 30/30/20/20 (as opposed to the usual 25% per quarter). & your overpayment was applied to the first quarter. So that explains how they divided the payments and why they are all different.

    Yeah, I hear you on complicated taxes. I appreciate that I know what our tax situation is and I can evaluate it throughout the year. Few people have that luxury any more...

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