The only minor source of income uncertainty my family faces is how big our December VTSAX dividend payment will be, but that is easily estimated as VTSAX balance * 1.25%/4 (I don’t think I’d quite noticed until now how low dividend yields had fallen). Filling out a hypothetical W2 should not be hard if you look at your YTD paystub info and extrapolate out to the end of the year (especially when using last year’s W2 as a guide). within a few dollars), what your 2021 tax liability will be. If you are a normal W2 employee, you should be able to estimate today, to a remarkable precision (i.e. This should easily be computed as 6*your monthly payment (since it started in July).How much of the CTC you’ve already received.If you haven’t received it yet, but are entitled to it, you’ll get it after filing your taxes.This was the poorly designed one with >100% marginal tax rates from $150k-$160k of income:.

Whether or not you’ve received your third stimulus yet.The questionnaire asks questions about:.MFJ can deduct $600 of above-the-line (for non-itemizers) charitable contributions this year.I’m confident they’ll clean that up soon enough.5% phase-out with MAGI above $150k for MFJ, $112.5k for HoH, $75k for single.Kiplinger explains how it ought to work here.It looks like FreeTaxUSA has not correctly computed the 5% child tax credit phase-out yet (second screenshot below).Plus, by taking the time to use my state’s online tool, it’s a bit easier to “see how the sausage (of state income tax) is made.”įrugality rant aside, their 2021 software is now live: It takes me about 5 minutes, which works out to $15/(5/60)=$180/hr of income-tax-free money.

Because I’m notoriously stingy, I use FreeTaxUSA for my federal return and use my state’s free self-serve online tool for my state taxes. Their business model is pretty straight forward. Despite having the scammiest-sounding name in the world, their software has been great to me. I’ve been using FreeTaxUSA for a few years now.

Tax caster 2021