I have some questions that hopefully somebody can shed some light.
- On my W-4, do I use my wage basis as my salary minus my 401k / 403b contributions? For example, if I make k annually and contributed k to my 401k / 403b, do I base my wage as k?
- Lets say my spouse makes k annually. On his W-4, he took an additional deduction of 0 after doing the calculations on the back (2 Wage Earner Household). Do I also add a 0 deduction on my W-4?
As a side note, it seems that with both of us working, we're only bringing in an additional $300 or so a month compared to him just working by himself. It just doesn't make sense to me. Just because I'm working now, his paycheck's tax deductions doubled. I don't think an extra $300 a month is worth the stress that I go thru.
Can someone help make some sense with the tax numbers for me?
When our household was only making a gross of $65k annually, his taxes liabilities were lower. I expected it to go up when I started working, but doubling the amount of tax liabilities is just crazy. I mean if I bring in an extra $27k gross, our combined salary should be $92k gross annually. But why is it that our combined net wages per month are only about $300 more than before? Are there some other ways that we can reduce our tax liability?
Thanks!