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SMI Visitor's Blog
     Welcome to the SMI Visitor's Blog where you'll find selected excerpts from our Member's Blog, plus occasional posts created especially for our visitors. For SMI Web Members, click here to go to the SMI Member Blog. April 1, 2011Adjust your withholding?In the latest issue of Sound Mind Investing we explain how to learn key things about your finances by examining the data on your income-tax return (subscribers' link).
Most Americans, however, don't even get within a thousand dollars of dead-on withholding. The Wall Street Journal has the early figures for this year. As of March 4, the Internal Revenue Service had received about 60.5 million individual income-tax returns. It had issued more than 52 million refunds, up 1.1% from a year ago. Those refunds totaled $161 billion, an average of $3,070. The WSJ's Tom Herman points out the downside of getting a big refund — and offers a suggestion. Uncle Sam doesn't pay interest on routine refunds. Thus, these taxpayers effectively have given Washington large amounts of interest-free loans. It would make a huge difference in lots of households if that average refund of $3,070 could be dropped to, say, about $600. That would mean an extra $200-a-month in take-home pay for millions of taxpayers. Who couldn't use that? The March 4 edition of the IRS's filing season stats are shown below, with a comparison to roughly the same period last year.
Posted by Joseph at 11:50 AM
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Category(s): Taxes Tag(s): Personal Finance Friday, tax withholding, taxes  Email this post
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One of the most obvious, of course, is whether you're having too little or too much withheld from your paycheck. Ideally, you don't want either situation. But perfect withholding is a tough target to hit because so many things can affect your tax liability.
Governments and central banks round the planet have done everything they can to prop up failed banking institutions, and lending that was risky from the start. We will not have a proper self sustaining recovery without an end to deficit spending and lots of banks going bust. I find discussion about mortgage finance and loans a bit meaningless. I also think the property costs have to fall a lot even now. I mean why would you want to own a home in the US or France? Isn't it much more cost effective to rent?