can I legally claim 9 on my tax return?

Question

ok, here is my question.. my friend who works with me at a local hospital says that you can legallyl claim 9 as an exemtion x times per year.. so she does this when we have 3 checks a month and our insurance premiums and stuff are not deducted to get more money so lets say 4 times a year. ive heard that you dont have to file taxes every year if you dont owe, you may do it every 3 years but ive never heard of this, what would happen, your return would be less? Anyone have a clue what i am talking about and can offer an answer because i dont want to do this if its gonna land me in the hotseat!

Answer 1

The only way you can claim 9 on your tax return is if you had yourself and 8 dependents, or yourself, a spouse, and 7 dependents. Your friend is dead wrong. It is true that you don't have to file every year, but that is only if you don't have taxable income and any federal or state withholdings. If you owe money you need to file a tax return and pay what you owe, and if you are owed a refund, you need to file a tax return to claim the refund.

Answer 2

You're getting a lot of bad information from unqualified people.

You can claim as many withholding allowances as you are legally entitled to, no more. There is a $500 penalty for filing a fraudulent Form W-4. If called on the carpet this could get expensive. The best way to proceed is to figure out your withholding allowances and stick with that.

You must file a tax return if your income exceeds the filing requirement amount for your filing status. Merely not having to pay with the return does not excuse you from the filing requirement.

It is true that there is no penalty for not filing if you are due a refund but if you put it off for too long your refund will be lost forever. The catch-22 to the whole thing is that if you don't file, the IRS will estimate your tax liability based upon what information that they have available. If it looks like you might owe, they'll send you a bill for the tax that they think that you owe. Now you have to scramble to clear it all up.

Be smart. File a proper W-4 and file your tax returns when they are due. Life will be much easier for you without the spectre of the IRS breathing down your neck.

Answer 3

On your tax return itself, you can only claim the exemptions that you are legally entitled to. But I assume you are talking about your W-4, the form you file with your employer to say how much tax to take out. If you change it to a higher number occasionally, then change it back after a pay or two, you might still be OK. If you normally get a refund, that would decrease your refund by the amount that didn't get withheld, so you end up with the same amount of money for the year. If you normally have to pay, you'd have to pay more if you had less withheld, plus could end up with additional penalties.

Sounds like a lot of messing around with paperwork though. If you normally get a refund, you could just change your W-4 to a higher number (NOT likely 9 though) and leave it that way all year.

You are legally required to file every year, but if you are owed a refund and don't file until late, even a couple years late, there is no penalty except that you don't have your refund in the meantime. If you are talking about changing your W-4 back and forth to get a little more in your paycheck a few times a year, I'd assume you'd rather have your refund sooner than later. And note if you go past three years late in filing, you'd be too late to get your refund at all. Even if you filed three years at the same time, you'd still have to do three separate returns, one for each year, so it wouldn't save you anything.

Answer 4

You could probably accomplish the same thing by just claiming your regular exemptions. However all you are doing is having less money withheld by your employer and when you file your taxes you will have to make up the difference between what you owe and what your employer withheld and sent to the IRS.

If you don't mind sending in money instead of getting a refund you can do it legally. Of course, if you consistently owe money two years in a row you may also be required to pay a penalty and interest.

Technically if you don't make enough money to file income tax you don't have to file. However, the IRS may want to audit you for that reason. Additionally, if you want to prove income for a loan or for some business reason two consecutive years of returns are normally requested.

All in all I think you are putting yourself at risk, making extra work for your employer's accountant and getting no real benefit from this practice. So in a word -- don't do it!

Answer 5

I think there is some confusion here.
I think your friend is claiming 9 for purposes of withholding income taxes from his/her paycheck NOT tax return.
On your tax return, you can only claim the # of exemptions to which you are entitled (yourself, spouse, dependents).
For income tax withholdings - the more exemptions you claim, the fewer the taxes are that are taken out of your check.
It puts cash in your pocket for the short-term, but puts you at risk of little to no refund and if you do it too often you could run the risk of owing taxes when you actually file.

Answer 6

No, we don't have a clue what you are talking about.