Starting A Budget
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Taxes Category

Nobody enjoys paying taxes. But when starting a budget, you must take your tax burden into consideration accurately. You do not want to pay more tax than you owe but you also want to make sure that you do pay what you do owe.

Don't Pay More
For all the people who say that they don't like paying taxes, there sure are a lot who pay more than they should. I used to be this way. I used to look at my tax withholding as kind of a forced savings plan and then look forward to the return every year. This is an extremely bad idea because the government is not paying you any interest on your return. You would be much better off reducing your withholding and putting that money into a savings account.

Check Your W2
If you are getting a large tax refund every year, more than a couple hundred dollars, then check your W2 and see how many deductions you have for state and federal taxes. You can have a different number for state and federal withholding purposes. You want to get that refund as close to zero as possible, though I think getting a little back is better than paying, so that when you are starting a budget you can maximize your earnings.

Retirement Savings
One way that you can reduce your tax liability is to put some of your earnings into a tax deferred savings account like a Roth IRA. This will reduce your taxable income. This is especially true if your employer will make matching contributions. Take full advantage of your employer's matching contribution. While it may seem like it is free money, it is really part of your benefits package and you want to take full advantage of that.

Always?
There are times when you might want for a short period to stop contributing to your retirement savings. If you are deep in debt you might want to stop contributing to your retirement savings and use that money to help get yourself out of debt and then start contributing again. There is no point in building up a huge retirement savings that will have to be used to pay off debt when you get there. You want to be debt-free when you get to retirement. Some people lose sight of that. I hope you don't.

Plan Ahead
So when starting a budget you want to pay as little tax throughout the year and reduce your tax burden as much as possible so that you can make use of every dollar throughout the year. You can pay off debt, build up savings or use just use those dollars for every day living. Regardless how you use them, I am sure that you can do a better job managing your dollars than the government can.