Help with 2023 W4 form

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
December 16, 2023
8 replies
89 views

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.

Best answer by rjs

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.

Critter-3

Level 15

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.

ChattymeAuthor

Level 5

hello

did I state how many dependents we prev had?

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

rjs

Answer

Level 15

ChattymeAuthor

Level 5

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

Level 15

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

DO you know what M00 is? Higher tax rate?

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.