Time is up! Put your pencils down. Close you tax booklet. It’s Tax Day 2019 in the United States. Your tax returns must be postmarked today (unless you filed for an extension).

No more number crunching, nail biting, or anxiety… until next year. My accountant remarked that very few clients were able to itemize deductions this year. This was due to the increased standard deduction, $12,000 for individual and $24,000. With charitable contributions and side-hustle write-downs, we were able to itemize by the skin of our teeth.

However, we still owed a sizable chunk to Uncle Sam. This was a bummer, but I got to thinking that I’d probably rather owe than get a big refund. After all, it’s my money; I just overpaid. Ideally, I would like to break-even.

The trick for most taxpayers is to have the proper number of allowances on Form W-4. Too big a refund back? Increase the number of allowances. Owe too much? Decrease the number of allowances. We each changed to zero allowances plus an additional $75 per pay too offset this year’s tax bill.

The suspension of the personal tax exemption and the reduced child dependent exemption led to our slightly higher tax bill, but with the right W-4 adjustments, tax payers have ability to reduce surprises next year.