Can someone please point me to the post about companies changing our tax withholdings without our consent. I have searched for it and can't find it. Thanks!!
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(I am not a lawyer, I am not an accountant, this is not legal advice, this is not tax advice)
Form W-4 is what you give your employer to set how your tax withholding works. The numbers from W-4 plug into the withholding formula, along with your taxable pay amount each paycheck.
For several years, up until 2018, the withholding formula kept letting lots of people "take home" more and more of their paycheck by withholding less and less. Taxes didn't change, though, so some of these people found themselves owing the government some money each year instead of getting some money refunded.
Starting in 2018, the tax code and withholding formulas changed significantly for most individual tax payers. The 1040 form was simplified. People got to take home a lot more of their paycheck, often times more than they should have. There was no good way to "fix" this if you were having way too little taxes withheld except to just update your W-4 with an extra amount to withhold.
Starting last year, Form W-4 finally changed. It's a little bit confusing, I won't discuss how it works now, check the IRS website for info.
The key point here, is if you gave your employer the "old" Form W-4, and have not given them an updated W-4 on the "new" form, then your employer has to apply some weird rules to interpret your "old" W-4 under the new formula. This interpretation can cause issues depending on your situation. To "fix" your situation, you have to provide an updated W-4 on the current form.
Most of the issues I've seen around withholding relate to W-4 Step 2(c) (a checkbox), and Step 3.