Help with 2023 W4 form

[ourfamily123]

My husbands employer changed his with holdings without telling him or his permission. They put federal M00.  We do not want gov to hold on to our money. Would rather balance or owe a little.

So We can't figure out the new form. It assume there's 2 incomes.

Only my husband works, no more dependents, no ira contributions, 401k contribution.

 We don't understand how to fill out since I do NOT WORK.

Checked married filed jointly but don't understand step 2 or 3?

Are we just suppose to check married file joint and nothing else and let them assume we want them to hold on to our money?

Need help.

[Critter-3]

The employer must have  upgraded to the new withholding system and automatically choose married for you ... there are no more  allowances like before.  If you are married and only one of you work then the only thing you have to fill in on the new W-4 form is the filing status of married and leave the rest of the form blank.  The employer has already done this for you.  Personally if you did use M-6 allowances on the old system then you really should have been owing since you do not have 4 kids/dependents to claim.

[rjs · Accepted solution]

Use the Tax Withholding Estimator on the IRS web site to figure out what to put on your husband's W-4 form. It will show you how to adjust your withholding to get the approximate refund amount that you want.

You are not your husband's dependent. He cannot claim you as a dependent on his tax return, and should not count you as a dependent on his W-4. A spouse can never be a dependent. You just file jointly.

[ourfamily123]

hello

did I state how many dependents we prev had?

Im pretty sure our accountant had it all figured out right.

[ourfamily123]

thank you. I did use the estimator. It is not clear. It does not exactly tell us what to put.

Something is not right. For spouse income it let me choose no income or skip spouse pay. But it would not let me skip enter last paycheck date and next paycheck date.

The paper form seems to assume married filing jointly are 2 income household which is not the case. There isn't an option for only one income. The employer switched to fed M00.

Seems like a higher rate being taken out. We do not want a refund. Would rather balance or owe a bit. Is it possible to do this?

[rjs]

---

@ourfamily123 wrote:

For spouse income it let me choose no income or skip spouse pay. But it would not let me skip enter last paycheck date and next paycheck date.

---

The Tax Withholding Estimator on the IRS web site does not ask those questions. It sounds like you are using some other withholding estimator. Click this link to go to the Tax Withholding Estimator on the IRS web site. It asks you how many jobs you and your spouse have. It starts off with one job. If you leave it at one job, you just enter the information for your husband's job.

But it's too late to change your husband's withholding for 2023, and the Tax Withholding Estimator won't work for 2024 until January. When you go through it in January, it will tell you exactly what to put on your W-4. It will even let you download a W-4 form already filled out for you. It has a slider that lets you select the refund amount that you want. It will let you go down to zero refund. I'm not sure whether it lets you select an amount to owe, and I can't test it right now because it just says that it's too late to adjust your withholding for 2023.

I don't see where the paper form assumes two incomes. Where do you see that? Are you looking at the actual IRS form for 2024? Here is a link to the IRS Form W-4 for 2024. Read the instructions on the form carefully.

Please note that when you reply to someone else's post, we can't tell who you are replying to unless you mention it in your reply or quote what you are replying to.

[ourfamily123]

What exactly is M00 for fed withholding on pay stub? It looks like a higher tax rate withheld. Zero has always been more taken out. How can we adjust  appropriately so we don't get a refund?

[ourfamily123]

At Champ Thank you for info. will try in 1/2024.

DO you know what M00 is? Higher tax rate?

[rjs · Accepted solution]

The M00 is a holdover from the old Form W-4 that was used before 2020. It means married with zero allowances. But the new Form W-4, starting in 2020, no longer uses allowances, so it's not clear what M00 means now, or how it affects the employer's calculation of the withholding. Specifying married would mean a lower tax rate, not higher.

As I said earlier, it's too late to do anything about 2023. In January you can use the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator to fill out a new W-4 for 2024. You will have plenty of time to adjust the withholding so that you do not get a refund.