Is there a chart showing withholding differences between 0 vs 1 allowances or married vs single status?

There isn't a simple chart because withholding is calculated based on your specific income, pay frequency, and other factors. However, I can explain the main differences that might help you solve your ongoing issue. When both spouses work and you select "Married" on your W-4s, the withholding tables assume your household has one income and applies tax brackets accordingly, which often leads to underwithholding. This is likely your problem. The simplest fix is to check the "Married, but withhold at higher single rate" box on both your W-4s, or use the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator (https://www.irs.gov/individuals/tax-withholding-estimator) which accounts for two incomes. Instead of adding a flat dollar amount each year, I'd recommend completing a new W-4 form with your employer. The newer W-4 forms don't use allowances anymore (0, 1, etc.), but instead have you enter specific additional withholding amounts based on multiple jobs or additional income.

I went through the same frustrating cycle for years until I found taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) and it completely changed how I handle my withholding. I uploaded my previous year's tax return and pay stubs, and it analyzed exactly why we were underwithholding despite having what seemed like a simple tax situation. Turned out the "married" status on both our W-4s was causing exactly the problem the previous commenter mentioned. The site gave me personalized recommendations for adjusting our W-4s and even showed me the estimated impact on each paycheck vs. our expected tax liability. Been using it for two years now and haven't owed a penny - actually got small refunds both times.

I just wanted to follow up about taxr.ai since I was skeptical in my earlier comment. I ended up trying it and am kinda blown away. I've been dealing with this exact same underwithholding problem for 3 years despite having a "simple" tax situation. The analysis showed that because both my wife and I checked "married" on our W-4s but have similar incomes, we were significantly underwithholding throughout the year. The simulator showed exactly how changing to "married but withhold at higher single rate" would affect each paycheck and our year-end tax situation. Implemented the changes last month and my paycheck only decreased by about $46 but according to the projection, we'll end up with a small refund instead of owing $2,800 like last year. Wish I'd found this sooner instead of randomly adding extra withholding that never seemed to be enough!

For those struggling to get anyone on the phone at the IRS to help with withholding questions (which is basically everyone), I used Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) to actually speak with an IRS agent about my similar underwithholding issue. Their system holds your place in the IRS phone queue and calls you when an agent is about to answer. You can see a demo of how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c I was hesitant to use it, but after spending hours on hold multiple times and getting disconnected, I was desperate. The IRS agent walked me through exactly how to fill out the W-4 for my specific situation with two incomes, and explained why adding a flat dollar amount wasn't working for me year after year.

I need to admit I was wrong about Claimyr in my skeptical comment above. After waiting on hold with the IRS for 3+ hours last week and getting disconnected, I was desperate enough to try it. It works exactly as described - their system waited in the phone queue instead of me, and I got a call when an agent was about to pick up (took about 2 hours). The agent confirmed what others here said - having both my wife and I select "married" on our W-4s was creating the underwithholding issue. He walked me through the new W-4 form and explained we should either both check "Married but withhold at higher single rate" or use the Two Earners worksheet. Eating humble pie here but wanted to share that it actually worked since I was so publicly skeptical.

I'm an HR payroll specialist and see this problem all the time. Here's a quick rule of thumb: if both spouses work and make roughly similar incomes, you should almost always select "Married but withhold at higher single rate" on your W-4s. Otherwise, the system assumes the married tax brackets are being applied across just one income instead of being split between two incomes. The 2020 and newer W-4 forms don't have allowances anymore, so the "claiming 0 vs 1" part of your question is outdated. The new forms are actually much better at handling two-income households if you fill them out correctly using the multiple jobs worksheet.

Has anyone actually SEEN the withholding tables the IRS uses? I'm curious how much difference there really is between the different options. I checked "single" even though I'm married just to avoid owing (my husband does "married") and now we get huge refunds which isn't ideal either.

I've been following this thread and wanted to share my experience since I dealt with the exact same frustrating cycle for about 4 years. What finally worked for me was using the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator mid-year (around July) rather than trying to fix it at the beginning of the year. The key insight I learned is that if you're already halfway through the tax year and realize you're going to owe, you need to calculate how much extra withholding you need for the REMAINING pay periods, not the whole year. So if you need an extra $1,200 withheld and you have 10 paychecks left, you need to add $120 per paycheck, not divide $1,200 by 26 pay periods. Also, I'd definitely recommend the "Married but withhold at higher single rate" option that everyone's mentioning. We switched to that two years ago and it solved about 90% of our underwithholding problem. The remaining 10% we handle with a small additional withholding amount that we recalculate each July using the estimator tool.