Death and taxes. Everybody's favorite subjects, so why not make it as fun as possible?

I am so excited about this. Is death really people's favorites? Okay, whatever. I'm so excited about this

because right now, the internet is going to tell us what we need to know about our tax system.

Let's dive right in. Is there a magic formula or some way to figure out

how many you can claim on your W-4 so you get the smallest tax return back? There's a formula,

but it's not based on the number of dependents because the IRS tables are wrong. Of course.

Okay. So thus you, you know, you can claim, like for instance, my daughter when she first got out

of college claimed six dependents. She didn't even have one. And it still got her a refund. Okay? So she still didn't have enough coming out. So that's how bad the tables. They're not minorly off. They suck. The way you would do it is one of two ways. the most accurate way is to actually do a fake tax return for the year.

Actually, The way you would do it is one of two ways. The most accurate way is to actually do a fake tax return for the year.

Actually prepare your tax return and let it tell you exactly what you would owe in taxes, your total tax bill.

And then divide that by the number of months, and that's what needs to come out of your check per month.

And so if your actual tax bill is $4,800, then $400 a month needs to come out, right?

Dave said that when his daughter graduated, she had like six dependents, and it still got her a refund.

Well, yeah, the more dependents you claim, the less taxes they withhold.

She should have claimed zero dependents that she didn't want to get a refund.

So it makes sense that she still got want to get a refund. So it makes

sense that she still got a refund because I think she likely did it wrong. Now, no W4 forms. They'll

kind of walk you through. Okay, answer this question, answer this question, answer this question. And I do

think that Dave is right. You can do a tax projection. You can arrive at what you think your tax bill is going to, and you can reverse engineer your withholding. But a lot of people don't know how to do that. So what I would say is this year, when you do your taxes, pay close attention. Do I owe a big amount? If that's the case, I probably need to increase my withholding. Or if I get a big refund, maybe I need to decrease my withholding. And I would do it that way rather than trying to go out and figure out okay well how do I do a tax rejection how do I do if that's not something that's sort of in your wheelhouse the the hassle factor is high for the way Dave laid this out I think it's the right way but it's it's I wouldn't do it this way here Here's what I would do. First year you get a job,

actually fill out the forum the way it is. If you're married, put married, and you can still check a box that says, hey, but I want to be treated as single because I want to have the maximum amount withheld. If you think you're going to get a refund, you don't have to check that box. That's right.

And then when you do your taxes in that first year, pay attention.

If there's a huge year, pay attention.

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