Step 3: Claim Dependents

[Pat1999]

Hello, 

so I selected “No” under step 3 on W-4. Instead I should have selected “Yes”. As my income will be less than $200,000. But I have zero dependents/children . What should I do know? Should I fill up another W-4 and give it to my employer? 

Thank you! 

[xmasbaby0]

If you gave your employer an incorrect W-4 then prepare a new one and give it to them.  The W-4 only goes to your employer.   It does not go to the IRS.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/tax-withholding-estimator

[rjs]

There is no Yes or No choice in Step 3 on the W-4 form, or anywhere else on the form. Are you using the current W-4 form? Use the link that xmasbaby0 gave you above to access the current form.

[Pat1999]

So, I did not fill up the actual w-4 form. My company had set up the W-4 form in a question and answer format. And once we answer all the questions, the w-4 form gets automatically filled up. So the step 3 questions was like: Is you income going to be less than $200,000? Yes or No? And if Yes, then they were asking for number of children’s and dependents I have. Hence, i selected No..that my income is not going to be less than $200,000. But I later realized that I could have selected Yes, and then just typed 0 in the children’s and dependents section. 

[rjs]

We can't see what your employer's system does with the W-4, and we have no way of knowing whether it's doing it correctly.

Step 3 on the IRS W-4 form basically adds up any credits that you might be entitled to claim on your tax return. It gives you specific instructions to calculate the child tax credit and credit for other dependents, and tells you to add other credits. The question about your income being less than $200,000 relates to the child tax credit. If you have no dependents you will not get the child tax credit or the credit for other dependents. So it makes no difference whether you answer No, or answer Yes and enter zero dependents. Either way the credit is going to be zero.

If your employer's system is doing the calculations correctly, there's no reason for you to change it or submit another W-4. Even though your answer was technically incorrect, the result should be the same as if you had answered correctly. If you can see the actual W-4 form that they fill out, you can check to make sure that line 3 is zero or blank.

[Pat1999]

Oh okay. Yes, the lines under step 3 and 4 are blank. 

thank you so much for replying to my question!