My wife and I with our two children moved to the United States in September last year. For the 2020 tax year, I was the only one earning and so filing the W-4 with my employer and then tax return was relatively simple, because it was for just one person (wife did not have a TIN or SSN at the time). Now, my wife is also authorized to work and as of this week, she just accepted two job offers at the same time. One is a properly, salaried teaching position, and the other is a freelancing contract.
The contractual employer has just asked for a W-9, which is straightforward enough. But her teaching job has asked us for the W-4 which is now leading to all these questions. Since we're new to the process, some guidance here will be very much appreciated.
- We will now be filing under married filing jointly - with my one job and her two gigs, this will be considered three jobs in total?
- Will our children be claimed as dependents on one W-4 or both? How does that work?
- Does this mean I will need to re-file my W-4 with my employer as well?
- Her contractual job will most likely not have any withholding - how do we pay the taxes owed on that?
- Is there anything we should be mindful of when approaching this? I ask because what might be common knowledge or sense for others, may be something entirely new to us.
Thank you in advance for any guidance.
