[College kids are notorious for being poor. And why shouldn’t we be? We take out student loans to pay for private universities, can barely balance a part-time job with our full-time courseload, and the only “balance” we’re familiar with refers to the number of points left on our dining hall cards. Oh, did I mention many of us tend to splurge every extra penny on PBR’s at the campus bar?

If you disagree with everything I just said, you probably don’t need this column. But if you’re nodding along because you’re officially an adult and still don’t know how to manage your money, then you might want to pay attention every week, because I’m going to (try to) get you through this, and make you a successful saver and a wise spender.]

Congratulations! You’ve got a job! You can start making money… and the government can start taking money from you!

On your first day at a new job, you’re going to get slapped with a stack of paperwork: company handbook, sexual harrassment awareness statement, and, of course, the W2 form. How many of you have snuck into the bathroom to call your parents and ask them WTF to write in this form? Yeah, me too. Here is everything you need to know:

The W2 determines how much money in taxes will be taken out of your paycheck. Typically, dependents have the most taken out, independents are somewhere in the middle, and people who have dependents have the least. Usually, college students are either “dependents” or sole “independents.” If your parents claim you as their dependent, they are basically telling the gov’t that they support you; therefore, the gov’t sees your wages as extra cash, and will take more money from you. If you are independent with no one to provide you, the tax form says (in layman’s terms) that you are responsible for living expenses (rent, utilities, tuition, etc), but don’t have to spend your money on anything else. Read More »

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I always scoffed at people when they complained about taxes. “Please,” I would say, “how do you think the government pays for things, hmm? Money doesn’t grow on trees you know. Taxes are a good thing.” This never produced the result I was looking for. Instead of applauding my common sense, or giving me a cookie in appreciation (although I did always suggest this course of action), people rolled their eyes. They sighed. They complained about youth not knowing anything these days.

Now, over the course of my employment history, I have helped 70-year-old women try on bras. I have scooped ice cream for ten hours straight. I have swiped cards at my dining hall after rugby practice lets out and the guys are pulling said cards from the sweaty waistbands of their shorts (um, ew). I fact checked articles on light bulbs and dumpsters all summer. I work hard for my money, darn it, and losing a substantial portion to taxes does not make me happy.

The upcoming election is a hot topic, and the discussion of what’s going to happen to our taxes is part of the reason. People are already paying large portions of their income to our government and it’s always scary to try and figure out just what the next person in office is going to do to your paycheck. Instead of paying for the new suit you need for work, that money just might be sucked into the oblivion of our national deficit.

So what to do? Well, for starters, look at the candidates’ tax proposals. Yeah, you might think that Democrats usually lower taxes for us in the peanuts range of the income scale and Republicans mean tax breaks for the wealthy, but in reality it’s far more complicated. Read More »