The short and truthful answer is, I don’t know. But I would like to. So as 2017 comes to an end and tax reform takes effect with the new year, I am beginning a multiyear project to track just how much my wife and I pay in taxes and whether it changes because of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (official text; the somewhat unwieldy Wikipedia article about it).
First, where we’ve been. Here is the percentage of our total income (form 1040, line 22) that we’ve paid in federal (form 1040, line 61) and state/local income taxes1 since we got married in 2008, along with major life events that may have affected our tax rate:
| Year | Federal | State/local Jurisdictions |
Total | Major life events |
| 2008 | 10.70% | 5.72% District of Columbia and Prince George’s County, Maryland |
16.42% | Married |
| 2009 | 10.87% | 4.69% District of Columbia |
15.56% | |
| 2010 | 10.18% | 4.60% District of Columbia |
14.78% | First child |
| 2011 | 8.00% | 3.96% District of Columbia and New York City, New York |
11.96% | Moved to New York |
| 2012 | 9.04% | 7.50% New York City, New York |
16.54% | First full year in New York |
| 2013 | 8.21% | 7.06% New York City, New York |
15.28% | |
| 2014 | 7.65% | 6.95% New York City, New York |
14.61% | Second child |
| 2015 | 7.13% | 7.02% New York City, New York |
14.16% | Third child |
| 2016 | 6.87% | 6.86% New York City, New York |
13.73% |
Since the tax-reform law didn’t take effect until 1 January 2018, I expect 2017’s taxes to follow the same general trend. As for 2018, I expect a tax cut, and The New York Times has a calculator to give me an idea of how much: 25.53% from the amount we paid in 2016. But time will tell.
PHOTO
United States Capitol by Phil Roeder/Flickr, CC BY 2.0
- Our District of Columbia taxes for 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 are listed on form D-40, line 22; Maryland for 2008 on form 502, line 40; New York, city and state, for 2011 on form IT-203, line 59; and New York, city and state, since 2012 on form IT-201, line 61. ↩
Dustin Tyler Joyce 