Hi everyone ! I’m hoping for a little reassurance or advice before I officially file.
I’m (25F) a full-time self-employed wedding photographer (since 2023), and before that I was self-employed in another business from 2019–2023. I’ve always filed my own taxes using TurboTax and track everything through QuickBooks Self-Employed. In past years, I’ve usually owed around $1,000–$1700
This year is different because
note I made about $33k in my business
It was kind of a slower year work-wise because my husband (M27) got married and bought a house, but I invested a lot into my business:
New camera + lens and more
Advertising/marketing
Subscriptions (Adobe, CRM, etc.)
Around \~50 shoots total
A decent amount of travel/mileage
I tracked everything through my bank + QuickBooks and categorized business vs personal as accurately as possible.
Here’s what’s throwing me off, I expected to owe like usual. Instead, it’s showing a $3,000 federal refund and I owe about $37 to the state
I’m assuming it’s because My husband had a decent amount withheld from their paycheck & My business income was lowered by legitimate expenses
But it just feels weird because I’ve never gotten a refund like this before, especially being self-employed.
I guess my questions are:
– Is this normal for a W-2 + self-employed couple filing jointly?
– Does this raise any red flags from an IRS perspective?
– Is there anything I should double-check before filing just to be safe?
All my numbers are real and pulled directly from my accounts! I’m not estimating or guessing, I just don’t use an accountant, so I want to make sure I’m not missing something obvious.
Thanks in advance 🙂 just trying to hit “file” with a little more confidence!
First year filing married jointly + self-employed… refund seems high?
byu/Nikokmc intax
Posted by Nikokmc
4 Comments
1.). It just depends on what your withholdings are/how much was withheld
2.). The fact that a w-2 plus self employed got a refund? By itself; definitely not
3.). You should always double check. Make sure you could prove all your deductions if asked to do so.
If you have a large income disparity between spouses, you will benefit from the larger married filing jointly tax brackets and larger standard deduction. Also, your wife probably still has single withholding.
Taxes don’t have to be a black box. Go line by line and compare it to past returns. You can see how the calculation works and where the differences are happening.
You could put your numbers into a free tax program like FreeTaxUSA to double check that everything comes out the same.
If your wife checked off “my spouse also has a job” on the w4 then they probably withheld too much, assuming you’d be in a higher tax bracket with dual incomes. I believe the default is to assume similar pay between the 2 jobs. Fix that for next year so they don’t over withhold.