2020 W4 draft

[TAXNJ]

Perhaps it would be more clear if the statement had been: " the goal of a Tax Professional is to educate their clients to THE DIFFERENCE between keeping their money throughout the year vs. leaving it interest free and later filing for the overpayment (refund)." I think we can all agree that education should help someone make their own informed decision, not thrust a decision upon them. It's more complicated when some people can manage their cash flows without assistance, but others, for whatever non-financial reasons, are not able to do so, at least not without some heavy outside constraints (like a tax over-payment they can only get back once a year). They may be thoroughly educated but still need to go with the theoretically "worse" decision, our role as tax pros at that point is to back off since we already performed our job with the education step.

Well said. You will probably get a few reply posts disagreeing but your point is well presented.

Bottom line, the “withholding” issue is nothing new. It has been an issue for years and will continue to be.

[Dusty2004]

TaxNJ:

My last comment on this is you said "Think the goal of a Tax Professional is to educate their clients to keep their money throughout the year" seems pretty clear to me. If they are getting a refund they are not educated.

[TAXNJ]

Trying to keep my head very low here so as not to get caught in the current crossfire:

Many clients focus ONLY on the size of their refunds. It their refunds are smaller than those of "their friends" then my tax preparation skills and/or fees charged are deemed suspect. Things go from bad to worse if they owe even a small amount of taxes on April 15th.
You can proffer "sound financial planning" all you want, but their opinion will not change.
(Those clients frequently do not stay around long anyway. TurboTax et al beckon them.)
OTOH, the vast majority of my clients deal with adjusted/monitored withholding, or more frequently estimated payments. For the latter, especially those with investment income, we just readjust as needed once each tax season.
Of course, as noted by others here, the amount of income your funds could earn by "not loaning the money to the government" is pretty well moot in today's extremely low interest environment.

So true. You and Rapid Robert's reply posts say it well.

Also, as you say …."Of course, as noted by others here, the amount of income your funds could earn by "not loaning the money to the government" is pretty well moot in today's extremely low interest environment"... and to that some clients say"time value of money" - "dollar today is worth more than tomorrow".

Just depends on the type of client. All clients are not of the same mindset which makes taxation interesting!!