W4 Allowances

Form W-4 is perhaps the most commonly used tax form right after the 1040. Every worker regardless of how much they’re earning files Form W-4 to allow their employers to withhold tax accurately when processing payroll.

Form W4 allowances is still one of the most searched topics about the form although it’s no longer found on the W4 Form 2023 and the prior version. If you’re planning on claiming allowances on Form W-4, know that you can’t. It’s simply impossible as there is no such thing as allowances on Form W-4 anymore.

Rather than claiming allowances on Form W-4, you will enter a series of information about your anticipated tax return. The Internal Revenue Service referred to the changes as:

Allowances are no longer used for the redesigned Form W-4. This change is meant to increase transparency, simplicity, and accuracy of the form. In the past, the value of a withholding allowance was tied to the amount of the personal exemption. Due to changes in law, currently you cannot claim personal exemptions or dependency exemptions.

IRS addressing the 2020 changes

As you can see from the IRS statement on Form W-4, the allowances are no longer found on it to increase the transparency, simplicity, and accuracy of the form. Fast forward to the 2024 tax season where taxpayers see the results of the new Employee’s Withholding Certificate, the accuracy is what the IRS intended.

While allowances weren’t very broad in terms of what it was providing to the employer to use with the Publication 15-T, the anticipated tax return information is. This ultimately allows for an accurate amount of federal income tax withholding.

How to check taxes withheld?

How to check the federal income tax withheld from your income by your employer? The Internal Revenue Service helps taxpayers to check how much tax is withheld from their income through the tax withholding estimator. This is a great tool where you can see the federal income tax withheld up to date.

If you keep a record of your pay stubs though, you can just take a look at the amount of federal income tax withheld up until to that pay period.

So you may ask what’s the purpose of the tax withholding estimator? It’s for getting an estimate of the total amount of tax that will be withheld at the end of the tax year. You can use the estimator to get an estimate of whether or not you will owe the IRS as well as the expected tax liability and refund amount, or the tax owed.