My wife is experiencing an issue with her employer not withholding enough federal and state taxes from her paycheck. Earlier this year, after we learned about the issue, she updated her W-4 to reflect one dependent and an additional $50 withholding per month, but despite these changes, her paychecks have still not been withholding the correct amount of taxes but deducting the $50 requested on the w-4, which shows that the w-4 had been reviewed and processed.
In fact, last year, her employer withheld no federal taxes at all, and she didn’t realize this at the time because she never reviewed her pay stubs (since she has direct deposit). As a result, she ended up owing a significant amount of money when she filed her taxes.
What’s confusing is that prior to last year, her employer was withholding a normal amount of taxes from her paycheck, and she hadn’t made any changes to her W-4 at that point. We’re not sure why they suddenly stopped withholding the correct amount, and now we’re concerned about the taxes owed from last year, as well as the potential tax liability for this year.
We’re looking for someone to help us identify why this is happening, assist in resolving the back taxes owed from last year, and ensure that any underpayment for this year is addressed, at least up to the point of when she updated her W-4. Ideally, we want to avoid any further surprises and get everything straightened out with the IRS and state tax authorities.
