Everyone seems to think that the new "postcard" return will make income tax preparation easier! Not true. The recurring theme in all of our continuing education classes this year has been the 20% increase in time we can expect to properly complete your return.

The new Federal withholding tables were designed to lower your total tax bill for the year by giving you a bigger paycheck throughout the year. Unfortunately, they were not designed to give you a refund at year end, and if you did not change your withholding, your refund will be very small (if any) because you already received it in bits and pieces through larger paychecks throughout the year.

One of our simple recommendations for 2019 is that all married individuals fill out a W-4 reflecting "single and zero" withholding.