2017 standard deduction and 2017 tax rates.

their "refund" drops or disappears.

Any chance you can show where to get that spreadsheet template?

That's why they are calling it a scam. The real cut went to the Koch brother's etal.

I've adjusted for the new, higher standard deduction, and the new tax rate as it applies to my taxable income. So, those things are not a player. I'm thinking that the withholding is not accurate.

Not a dollar per dollar change but basically I'm robbing from Peter to pay Paul. Yes my check is up, but yeah my refund is going down too. I don't think this is the case for every income level.

but it was close.

I just used an even $500 for purposes of my OP.

Most of the benefit of the increased standard deduction was wiped out by the elimination of exemptions. Couple that with withholding tables that may or may not work for my situation, and that would explain the fact that this "tax relief" does not mean jack shit in my case.

I believe a large percentage of the population will see what you're seeing, but they made a big case over the "filing on a postcard" issues.

The thing is, an awful lot of people are using 1040 EZ or 1040 A which is already just 1 two-sided page and half the cells end up zero.

So, they tried to sell this "breakeven" thing as a tax cut and simplification when it was already super simple for 30 to 50% of taxpayers. And with tax software, even those who were itemizing found it easy and fast.

This whole thing is "swamp land in Florida".

This is slightly OT, but it always pains me to see people eager for a refund. Getting a refund at all means you are withholding too much and giving an interest-free loan to the government. It is more to your advantage to reduce your withholding a bit and put the money into savings or into paying down debt.

almost dead nuts every year. That amount is what I predict my property tax bill will be around the time the tax refund is received.

I understand that I am missing out on the interest this could have earned, or the debt interest this could have prevented, but logistically, this is easier for me because the amount is not that large and I always know it will be there when the property taxes come due.

In general though, you are entirely correct.

to see a higher paycheck.

Same old thing... you can take less now and get a bigger refund or take more now and get a lesser refund.

Just smoke and mirrors.

The 2017 1040 was only finalized a few weeks ago, so it's going to be awhile before we see a draft 2018 1040.

To simulate what your 2018 will be, you should update the tax rates based on your bracket, update to the new standard deduction (which doubles I believe), and then remove your exemption.

I've tried to a similar simulation for myself, and I came to the conclusion that I don't have enough information yet to know if I benefit or suffer.

In your case, you certainly won't see zero difference except by some math miracle, there is just to many variables changing. But at the same time, there isn't enough solid information yet to know if your refund rises or drops.

into the spreadsheet. I should have been more clear...the spreadsheet is fairly complicated. It doesn't "mimic" the 1040 as a I stated, but rather, it computes the tax in the same way that the 1040 does.

If you dont have kids your taxes wont change much. Standard ded doubles but with the loss of exemptions it only goes up 3000 overall. Tax rates drop from 15 to 12%. So on every $100 you keep $3 more. People with kiss who get the tax credit will see a decent bump. But if you're a working couple or single it shouldn't be drasticallydidifferent

because my itemized deductions exceed the new standard deduction and my state and property tax deductions are over the $10,000 cap.

So, there was no tax cut for me. Just paying more for billionaires.