Tax question

[flash9286]

Do college students get most of their taxes back in their refund?

[Zkribbler]

Probably not "most."

Government withholding is supposed to estimate how much you really have to pay the goverment. ...However, the government almost always tilts that estimate in its favor, thus the refund. But it most probably won't be a whole lot.

[KrazyHorse]

It depends. If you worked mainly during the summertime then you will get a significan amount of it back. The government estimates your earnings by projecting each paycheque across a whole year. Those who will get the biggest refund are those who have the biggest fluctuation in biweekly earnings during the year.

[KrazyHorse]

In Canada, since the personal exemption is higher than in the US, it was often the case that I should have paid no income taxes whatsoever for the years I was a student. Therefore all my witheld earnings were returned to me.

Since the US personal exemption is relatively low, you will probably have to let them keep some of your witheld earnings, but certainly not all.

[Timexwatch]

Also depends if you file separate or file as a dependent. And I'm sure if you earned below the poverty line you'll get most back.

[Skanky Burns]

In Australia, at least, payroll overestimates tax withheld but not by a great deal, so your average refund is between $100 and $300, depending on expenses claimed. The refund (and proportion of withheld taxes returned) increase greatly if you work only part of the year, for reasons KH mentioned above.

That said, I have no clue as to how taxes are done in America, so this post is quite possibly completely irrelevant.

[Timexwatch]

And depending on how your taxes are done, you may get as much, if not more screwed at the state level more than the federal level. At least that's it's for me this year.

[flash9286]

Well I don't know the exact numbers, but I worked for 3 months in the summer, worked 40hrs a week, got payed 13$/hr, and my parents still claim me as a dependent. So I should get most of it back right?

[KrazyHorse]

Just fill in the damn form and figure it out.

It took me like 20 minutes to do my taxes this year.

[flash9286]

It's already been sent off, my parents pay someone to do the whole families taxes, and they forget to ask an estimate for my return. So chill out guy.

[KrazyHorse]

Dude, it's no easier for us to figure it out than for you. If you want to know how much your refund is, plug it in to the form.

[flash9286]

I thought students who have filled tax reforms before would know, i wasn't looking for an exact figure.

[KrazyHorse]

****. I just looked at the ****ing 1040-EZ form. Why the **** do residents get to claim a standard deduction of 5000$ while I have to itemise my deductions (and only got to claim ~1600$)

That cost me 500$ in ****ing taxes. What a bunch of *******s.

[KrazyHorse]

That doesn't make any ****ing sense. **** you, IRS. **** you in the *******.

[snoopy369]

no idea, KH

Flash, it depends on how much income you get, and how much you pay for school, but yeah, you'll probably get back most of what you paid in taxes. You get, between the various student deductions/credits and the standard deduction, a bit over $10k in deduction to income, so if you made <10k you owe no tax (and thus get all of it back). That's regardless of whether you were claimed on your parents' taxes or no (they'd be stupid not to, they surely pay more than you).

However, if you have significant income (either from work, or from nontaxdeductible investment/etc. income) then you might not get that much back. A student, compared to a homeowning adult, has relatively little in deductions available; again, around $10k ($11k iirc is the max possible just for student related). While compared to me, a post-student still making a pretty small salary (over $20k but not by much) and living in an apartment, you'd get a lot of deductions ($6k more), you get quite little compared to an adult with $100k income or such, who owns a house and has other various sources of deductions. So, if you have significant investment income, you'd get little to nothing back. (Of course, any student who's not already a millionaire in his own right ought to be saving said investments, thus not paying tax on them, and only pulling out a reasonable amount to spend ... as you have little time to spend wads of cash in between studying, right? )