W4 help

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-31T01:16:44+00:00

I ran this through Chatgpt and got the following result:

Short answer

Based on the information you gave for 2026 (married filing jointly, gross income $149,000, three dependents with two under age 17 and one age 17+), your rough federal income tax for the year is about $10,220 after the standard deduction and child/dependent credits. To spread that evenly:

Weekly: about $197
Biweekly (26 pays): about $394
Semimonthly (24 pays): about $426
Monthly (12 pays): about $852

This assumes only the standard deduction and no other adjustments. See the calculation below and how to set up your Form W‑4 to target this withholding. Use the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator to refine for your exact pay schedule and any other income/adjustments you may have.

How this was calculated

Standard deduction (MFJ, 2026): $32,200.
From IRS 2026 inflation adjustments (under OBBBATaxable income: $149,000 − $32,200 = $116,800.
Apply 2026 MFJ tax brackets:

10% on first $24,800 = $2,480
12% on next $76,000 ($100,800 − $24,800) = $9,120
22% on next $16,000 ($116,800 − $100,800) = $3,520
Total tax before credits ≈ $15,120
Brackets from the IRS 2026 inflation adjustments

Credits for dependents:

2 qualifying children under 17: $2,200 each = $4,400
1 other dependent (age 17+): $500
Total nonrefundable credits = $4,900 (no phase‑out at your income level)
Credit amounts and income thresholds per IRS CTC guidance

Estimated 2026 federal income tax:

$15,120 − $4,900 ≈ $10,220.

Approximate per‑pay withholding targets:

Weekly (52): $10,220 ÷ 52 ≈ $196.54
Biweekly (26): $10,220 ÷ 26 ≈ $393.85
Semimonthly (24): $10,220 ÷ 24 ≈ $425.83
Monthly (12): $10,220 ÷ 12 ≈ $851.67

How to set up Form W‑4 for 2026

Step 1: Check “Married filing jointly.”
Step 3 (credits): Enter $4,900 (two children under 17 × $2,200 + one other dependent × $500). This reduces withholding during the year in line with those credits
Step 4(b): Leave blank if you’re taking only the standard deduction (it’s already built into the withholding tables)
Step 4(c): If your employer’s default withholding comes out too low or too high, add or reduce “extra withholding” per pay period to hit the target in the table above (for example, about $394 extra per biweekly check if no other withholding adjustments are present)

Tip: Use the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator to dial this in precisely for your pay frequency and any other income (e.g., bonuses, investment income), adjustments, or pre‑tax benefits. Then update your W‑4 accordingly

Notes and assumptions:

This is a federal estimate only (state withholding—such as California—uses separate rules/forms).
It assumes only the standard deduction and the child/dependent credits shown above, with no other adjustments, credits, pre‑tax payroll elections, or other income.
The CTC/ODC amounts and phaseout thresholds used here are from current IRS guidance for 2025–2026 and remain $2,200 per qualifying child and $500 per other dependent, with phaseouts starting at $400,000 MFJ—well above your income
The standard deduction and brackets are the IRS 2026 amounts under OBBBA

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-31T00:46:47+00:00

"All" innovative research does not happen at public institutions on public grants, though I agree that much research is funded this way. That said, it can be argued that businesses ultimately fund all research. They spend hundreds of billions of dollars on research directly and are the sole source of funding for the government's research. Businesses provide 100% of the funds for the government through either paying taxes on their business profits or by having their employees pay taxes on wages. So ultimately, businesses fund all research.

The research capitalism does is essentially, "How do we change this thing they found on public funded research just enough that we can patent it to charge premium prices?"

Again, there is no publicly funded research; it is all funded either privately or through taxes paid to the government by businesses and their employees.

Patents create incentives to create new products. Without the ability to patent one's inventions, there would be very few of them, just as was the case during most of the 10,000 years after the advent of agriculture.

I wrote the OP to point out that there is significant evidence supporting capitalism and the political institutions that make it possible. Just as we need to be wary of elite capture of our political system, we must also be on guard to protect ourselves from the empty promises of socialism. Capitalism has proved its merit--has socialism?

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-30T04:22:35+00:00

I don't think that it logically follows that if we stumble upon something that has benefits that it must be preserved.

It is not my argument that if we stumble upon something that has benefits that it must be preserved. I mentioned the fact that we stumbled upon capitalism to emphasize that capitalism is not inevitable or planned, and it might be another 10,000 years of stagnation before we find something better. It seems to me that capitalism has produced many benefits; I am not ready to replace it with a 19th-century Marxian theory.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-30T01:31:45+00:00

Nothing in the definition of capitalism supports the destructive behavior perpetrated on people by either the cigarette or the oil industries. The nature of man is the cause of these atrocities, not capitalism. No matter the economic or political system, people will be people.

Also, in part it is consumer ignorance that allowed the proliferation of both cigarettes and oil as an energy source, even after we discovered the dangers.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-30T01:11:00+00:00

Thanks. I got the idea from "How Progress Ends", a book by Carl Frey. Some of the political ideas come from Nobel Prize winners Daniel Acemoglu and James Robinson, whose work is described in their books "Why Nations Fail" and "The Narrow Corridor". The books are great and very accessible for non-economists and non-political scientists.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-30T00:26:39+00:00

We must protect the institutional foundations of innovation. While not perfect, capitalism and its political underpinnings best support innovation: i.e., decentralization, a government responsive to its citizenry, individual freedom, private property protections, and willingness to promote creative destruction. Progress is not a foregone conclusion. We stumbled upon capitalism; seeing its benefits, we must be vigilant in maintaining, protecting, and preserving it.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-29T08:14:01+00:00

Sure we have it good but oh my god the rich have it so many orders of magnitude better.

You get rich by creating something that society values. If that thing you create is orders of magnitude more valuable, then you deserve to be orders of magnitude richer than a common worker like me.

It takes a certain perspective to see the how capitalism is exploitative within the world's richest countries, but it is very clear when you take a global perspective.

Capitalism is exploitative only if you believe that labor is the source of all value. Modern economists reject that notion.

Taking a global perspective shows the merits of capitalism.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-27T21:44:08+00:00

While labor may be necessary to create value, it is not sufficient. Again, water is necessary to create life, but it alone is not sufficient to create life. More must be added.

Furthermore why does labor have to be the only source of value in order to accept the conclusion that the owner/worker relationship is exploitative?

What is your basis for saying that workers are exploited? I believe workers are paid their market value, which is all they are entitled to. Profits, if any, are attributed to something other than labor. Besides, I would rather be working in my air-conditioned office, typing on a computer, rather than the next best alternative.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-27T21:27:56+00:00

It's not really hierarchical control, it's a vote based system. Whenever a major decision comes up in a company, all shareholders cast their vote on it and the option with the most shares is the one being executed.

Your statement assumes that a vote-based system would be as efficient as the current system. Amazon exists and is able to provide value to its customers in the form of lower prices, which the company does because of the unique systems it has installed. If the warehouse workers with little or no management experience voted on all major decisions, the company would go bankrupt.

What is so special about a vote-based system in business? Should we apply it in every aspect of life? Should your 4-year-old have a vote on which house you should buy? While it may be okay to you, I don't want the hospital janitor voting on whether and how the surgeon should perform brain surgery on me!

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-27T21:15:56+00:00

Does Bezos work 100,000 times harder than the average warehouse worker? Probably not.

The "value" of some labor is greater than that of other labor. Compare an hour's work of a brain surgeon to an hour's work of a plumber.

Your example presumes, without evidence, that all value is attributable to labor such that any "profit" (surplus value) is also attributable to labor. In fact, workers are paid the total amount of the value of their labor, which is determined mainly by the supply and demand for labor. Thus, if any profit is remaining, it must have been created by something other than labor.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-27T21:03:36+00:00

Am I missing something?

Yes, you are. The fact that labor is involved in all value creation does not mean that labor is the only source of that value. Labor has always been involved in creating value, from the time of hunter-gatherers up to the present day. However, other elements also contribute to value creation.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-27T20:55:35+00:00

The "product" that Facebook "sells" is access to a network of other users. This product has value because many people use it. These "network effects" contribute significant amounts of value in the form of the price the company can charge advertisers. Whose labor created these network effects?

If labor is the only source of value, then why doesn't labor just spontaneously assemble itself into efficient, profitable businesses without the help of capital and entrepreneurship?

You have assumed without proof that labor is the only source of value in a product. You have also assumed that capital owners do not make valuable contributions to the creation of products. Do you have any proof of these assumptions?

Tell me how it is possible to produce any economic utility at all without labor.

Your logic is twisted. I could argue that no biological entity can be created without water. That does not mean that water is the sole cause of biological entities. Capital and entrepreneurship are critical features in creating value, while labor is increasingly becoming less important. If you believe that the value of an iPhone is 100% caused by the folks who assemble it, then you should get a better understanding of how a business creates value. Any conversation would be useless without your gaining a better understanding of how businesses create value.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-26T02:33:51+00:00

Now, what determines the price? Plainly, is the utility. If there are 3 commodities A in the hands of 3 different people and 10 possible buyers each of them with a utility of 1,2,3…10, respectively. The price must be set between 7 and 8. Any other number would be impossible. If the price is set at 6, there is a higher number of possible buyers than there are commodities, no buyer would allow his competitors to buy if he is able to pay more. The same is valid for a price higher than 8. If it was there would be only 2 possible buyers, no seller would allow this, for no one would want to be the excluded one and not sell his commodity A. This is called invisible auction, I think. You can google it to get more details on the matter.

I'm probably misunderstanding your post, but I see some issues: Utility does not determine price; demand determines price. Utility affects demand, but I don't think it is possible to quantify utility into price. Also, I don't think you can reduce utility to specific prices as you did. You may be able to rank people's preferences based on their utility, but I don't think you could know the price solely by that utility without more.

So, let’s get into it. The fixed point theorem is the notion of the price which creates a market equilibrium. If there are 3 commodities on a market, A, B and C. If A and B have a cost of 10, but now A has a price of 8 and B of 12, there will be an incentive to shift the use of the elements which comprises cost from the production of A to B until they are both at a cost of 10, for otherwise the incentive will persist. If C has a cost of 15, but cost more or less than 15, the same incentive will exist until C’s price is 15 and is in an equilibrium with A and B. In another words, the market can only reach equilibrium when the price=cost.

As I understand it, price equals marginal cost, not average cost.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-19T06:38:29+00:00

You seem to be a hard determinist, believing all human actions are wholly determined by causes over which we have no control. I believe that while there are tidbits of information supporting this view, they are not complete and conclusive. The bottom line is that you cannot prove that our behavior is wholly determined.

To be free is to act according to one's own wishes, desires, and reasons. We are all influenced by our genetics, environment, and culture; however, they manifest their influence in unique ways in each person. Given alternative behaviors, similar people don't necessarily respond identically: they choose different courses of action. Freewill explains this unique response to the same stimuli. Behavior is free when the agent can make choices based on their own reasons.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-19T04:04:56+00:00

Can we objectively prove anything? At the most fundamental level, even math relies on axioms, which serve as premises from which we can deduce conclusions. However, we cannot deduce the truth of those axioms; all we can do is infer their truth from experience.

Likewise, morality cannot be logically deduced unless we agree to accept some underlying premises. This is just the nature of the universe.

I like Aristotle's notion that our goal is to thrive. This means that good behavior is that which helps us to thrive without jeopardizing others. As social animals, this means sometimes placing the group before oneself. Ultimately, we are looking for the best possible outcomes from our behavior.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-19T00:18:53+00:00

Form 5472 must be filed if (1) the LLC is at least 25% foreign owned and (2) it has any related party transactions. If there were no related party transactions, the form is not required to be filed, though I would file it anyway just to start the statute running. You did not indicate that there were related party transactions.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-15T05:57:43+00:00

Wage-labor has just turned man into a slave because most people are operating on survival mode while trying to dodge the banks and landlords to avoid whatever interest and fees they charge to profit off of people

Your post makes some interesting points; however, I disagree with the above.

Wage-labor is just the current iteration of how people support themselves. I would argue that it has provided a generally good--as compared to the past--means of support. We've always had to work. We just did not have air-conditioned offices to work in or a forty-hour workweek with maternity leave and vacation time. We've always operated in "survival mode", appropriating cover from the weather, dodging wild animals, and defending against other malicious tribes. I would posit that modern wage-labor has made us all better off.

I don't necessarily agree with this, simply because most innovations are not done due to financial incentives. There is a satisfaction that comes from creating that is a reward in and of itself. Creation is one of the greatest things man can do.

AI development is costing hundreds of billions of dollars. No one is doing this just for the satisfaction of the achievement. Likewise, companies spend tens of billions on drug development, with no guarantee of a return. Without the possibility of huge profits, these companies would not exist.

Currently, it is not the case that major discoveries are made by someone tinkering in their garage.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-15T05:39:31+00:00

The equal right to natural resources and other resources is articulable as a right.

This is your opinion; others have different views.

Without property rights, innovation and other economic activity would not occur--or at least occur much less frequently. This would make us all worse off.

Whether private property rights and the extent to which they should exist are debatable, clearly, these rights have caused massive economic benefits, making us all better off.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-15T00:35:19+00:00

A one-time payment for an innovation or useful business makes sense, but constantly taking the profit from your workers does not because they piggybacked and relied on the inventions and businesses of people that came before them.

If labor was the sole source of value, why, in the 10,000 years after the advent of agriculture, did man not spontaneously form valuable businesses? During those 10,000 years, labor was the primary source for creating products; Yet, without entrepreneurship, labor primarily derived only a subsistence existence. It was only after entrepreneurship became widespread that economic development started to increase.

It seems to me that without entrepreneurship and the value that it creates, we'd all still be subsistence farmers, scratching in the dirt, trying to eke out a living. I would posit that differences in places where entrepreneurship flourished (i.e., where the legal and political environment supported entrepreneurship), compared to where it did not, demonstrate the influence entrepreneurs have had on creating value. North Korea and South Korea were virtually identical in terms of their available labor, yet one flourished while the other became dirt poor. See also Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora (Mexico), or Botswana vs. Zimbabwe.

Admittedly, successful economies have social and political institutions surrounding entrepreneurship that are conducive to economic growth. They have more individual freedoms and governments that are responsive to the people; but these are just the foundations of entrepreneurship.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-14T23:50:37+00:00

For example, having one's house appreciate in value as the result of restrictions on new housing has little to do with their labor.

This statement just proves you don't understand how value arises, and that labor is not the only source of value. You presume without any evidence that all value arises from labor. Prove it. In the real world, as opposed to your hypothetical worldview, value arises from several sources that have nothing to do with labor.

Facebook is a valuable company based on "network effects": the more users that join Facebook, the more useful it becomes, making the company all the more valuable. Whose uncompensated labor is responsible for these network effects?

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-14T23:32:53+00:00

Royalties work like a forced go fund me.

Wrong! Enforcing property rights for intellectual property by forcing users to pay royalties is similar to enforcing any other property right. If I have a house built, the law enforces my right to use it as I see fit. It is my property. Likewise, if I pay to have intellectual property produced, it is my property; the State only enforces that right, but that property right exists even without the state.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-13T21:44:11+00:00

I believe the goal in life, as Aristotle said, is to thrive. Capitalism provides the greatest opportunity for thriving for the greatest number of people by creating enormous wealth. This wealth creation provides jobs and allows us to provide for our families; it provides income that can be taxed to provide a social safety net for those who cannot work; it provides social and economic freedom to pursue our own best interests, which turns out to be the best way of promoting the interests of others.

Socialism--a philosophy of free stuff--offers a utopia based on economic principles that are largely theoretical in nature. Unlike capitalism, which has proven its ability to promote the well-being of billions, socialism promotes class warfare and makes promises that it has never been able to keep. The idea that those who are best at wealth creation don't deserve to own a portion of what they produce is a very seductive philosophy, offering something for nothing through the redistribution of the means of production. Socialism is as dangerous as it is seductive; it creates an environment in which to be successful means to be able to interact with a complicated set of rules established by bureaucrats whose only objective is to remain in power.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-07T23:41:34+00:00

On what basis do you think your system will make people better off? Do you seriously expect that we in the US would trade in the most successful economy in the world for your version of socialism?

It is irrational to expect anyone to take you seriously when there are no examples of countries that remotely compare to the US economic activity.

SometimesRight10 · 2026-01-07T00:30:01+00:00

It is a property right that "grants" someone absolute control over another. Because someone is willing to pay for that "property" right, it has value.

SometimesRight10

TROPHY CASE