Hey everyone, it’s Finance Fridays again. Today is just a short post to follow-up on how my 2018 Taxes are going.

Things went pretty much as expected. As expected, we ended up owing the state of Hawaii some money this year because of changes in the Hawaii State Income Tax. However, because I was pretty conservative with my withholding this year, I didn’t end up owing too much and we actually received a small refund from federal. So all in all, nothing was outside of expectations.

I was going to write a lot more stuff, but I don’t think it’s really necessary. In general, I’m pretty conservative with my taxes. It’s always a good idea to be aware of any potential changes to your taxes. You can’t always be perfect, but my goal is to try to be less than $5000 one way or the other.

Whereas some people would like to have a large refund given to them in April — that’s not something I want. You’ve essentially given the government a loan interest-free. I could have done things with that money. The other side of the coin is also true, you don’t want to be saddled with a large sum of money you need to come up with to pay.

I think less than $5000 either way doesn’t really change my overall plan too much. This may change later on, but that’s been my plan so far and I’m pretty happy with it.

TL;DR

I try to keep my taxes < $5000 either way.

Even with the changes to Hawaii State Income Taxes, things ended up being within my range of expectations.

-Sensei

Agree? Disagree? Questions, Comments and Suggestions are welcome.

You don’t need to fill out your email address, just write your name or nickname.

Like these posts? Make sure to subscribe to get email alerts!