Overwithholding

Mama Government treats us like we're idiots. And for good reason a lot of the time because, well, let's face it. Many of us are.

So...we get $4k a month as our gross pay. It comes in email form, electronically. We earn $4k but we only get a cash transfer of $2,893.

Why so much less than the $4k we earned? Well, the company we work for withholds taxes (federal and state), which they then remit to the government on our behalf. Why do they do this instead of relying on us to save enough money from our paychecks at the end of the year to do it ourselves? Yeah, that idiot thing.

So...sometimes we have other deductions that our company didn't know about. Maybe a health problem. Maybe a home mortgage. Maybe some other worthy tax deduction that gives us a tax break. Well, in that instance, the company will have overwitheld cash from our paycheck, i.e. they held back too much to give to Uncle Sam at the end of the year. We then get a rebate some time after April 15th. Not the worst thing in the world to happen, but it makes the system way less efficient than it should be when this happens.

Yeah. Idiots everywhere.