Last year I worked 2 jobs. When I enter them individually, I receive a refund. However, when I enter them together, I owe. What is going on? So this is what's happening..... I worked for HEB and had $135.01 taken out for federal taxes. I also worked for Pizza Hut and had $31.28 taken out for federal taxes. I live in Texas and do not have state withholding. When I ender my Pizza Hut info, my refund is $31. The moment I add HEB, I owe $302. However, when I take Pizza Hut off and leave HEB, my refund is $135. Why wouldn't I receive $166 back instead of owing $302? My wages for HEB were $12,376.63 and my wages for Pizza Hut were $6,122.80. Last year I only worked at HEB and I made $19,508.00. Therefore, I made $1,008.00 more last year and I received a refund. I am so confused. I'm only 22 and I'm struggling to make ends meet and then our government finds another way to screw me.
Your tax is calculated on your total income. It's not calculated separately for each job. When you enter only one job, it looks like that's your total income. Either job alone is low enough that you would not have to pay any tax if that was really your only income, so you would get a refund of all the tax that was withheld. But when you enter both jobs you total income is high enough that you have to pay tax, and the total amount that you had withheld from both jobs is not enough to cover the tax on your total income.
For this year, 2024, you can use the Tax Withholding Estimator on the IRS web site to figure out what you should each put on the W-4 forms that you give to each employer. It will show you how to adjust your withholding to get the approximate refund amount that you want.