Tax guru's, need help.........................

[Dooin' it]

A friend of my wife's needs some help for a situtation she's in. She's recently had a baby & her husband has since left the household & doesn't help much financially anyway. I'm gonna take a shot in the dark & say she makes about $35K/year. Currently, she's filed single & claiming zero. What she would like to know is what kind of *extra* money she can expect per month by changing her witholdings to "claiming 2".

Maybe there's an online calc for this stuff, but I told my wife I was gonna ask the gang here this morning & didn't & now it's lunch here & she just gave me the "whip-cracking" phone call so I thought I'd throw it out to the gurus. I could guess, but I don't want to throw her bad info & expect one thing & get another.

TIA

[Pexster]

You can look it up in this withholding chart. Using your number, around $120 per month is my guess.

[MTAtech]

Shouldn't she file as Head of Houshold?

[NeoStarO1]

She can file Married but seperated. If she plans to file a sperate tax return she can techically claim up to three.
1. One for head of household
1 for self
1 for each dependant.

Come tax time she'll need to file 2.

On her W2 forms with her employer she can file 3 and keep in mind that she could and can owe back taxes, however i have never had to and I used to claim 4.

[Dooin' it]

Thanks guys!! I think that's about what she was looking for. I explained to my wife to be sure she's aware of what might happen at the end of the year (i.e. owing money instead of getting a refund check, back taxes, etc.)

I also suggested to my wife that she be sure & tell her that she's gonna want to know if the hubby (or ex-soon-to-be) is going to try & claim the kid on his taxes. (The custody deals always get nasty). The whole reason she's doing this is simply because the month-to-month is getting tight on her own & he's a little flaky at the moment since they haven't started the whole "he said/she said" in court nor started a case for child custody. (i.e. no dollars comin' her way from him just yet). Meanwhile he's living w/ his folks for........well........free.