Wife and I both work, filing jointly, have a child, took 3 total allowances on W-4. Owe $8,000.

My wife and I are married, both work, have a child, filing jointly. Last year, checked around online and all seemed to say taking 3 allowances makes sense for married couple with one child. So I took 1 allowance, she took 2. When we just entered our W-2s, it says we'll owe $8,000. Should we not have taken 3 allowances on W-4 all of last year?

327

Level 15

Jun 1, 2019 12:05:09 AM

If you've only begun working on your TurboTax program, you've still got lots to work on. You haven't yet gotten to the part of your program that calculates your deductions and credits. Don't pay much attention to that Refund Monitor. It's only truly accurate when you've finished entering all of your data and are ready to file.

So keep on working through your program. Please post back if you have further concerns.

Also, see the TurboTax W-4 calculator, linked below, to see how things stack up for 2017.

https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/calculators/w4/

Why sign in to the Community?

Wife and I both work, filing jointly, have a child, took 3 total allowances on W-4. Owe $8,000.