I have to pay 4 grand in taxes for 2015 cause I raised my allowances for 2015. I
have a stepdaughter who turned 17 so she no longer qualifies for the tax credit. My wife stopped working. I'm the head of household and only bread winner. How should I file on my w4 for the 2016 tax year so I could break even with Uncle Sam at tax time?

?======== The goal is to get your refund or tax due as close to $0 as possible.

Read more: How to Fill Out a W-4 Correctly | RapidTax hard to tell to accurately decide withholding allowances on your W4 to break even with irs at tax; Withholding allowances do not solely pertain to dependents or to the personal exemption amount, though withholding allowances are related. A withholding allowance is a way for your payroll department to use the look-up tables provided by the IRS to figure out how much tax to withhold from each paycheck. A withholding allowance represents your total tax deductions divided by the personal exemption amount. This results in a ratio, and this ratio is how many withholding allowances you should claim. For example, say you qualifiy as head of household, and have one dependent, step daughter as your spouse can not be yoru depednent. Let's further assume that your deductions consist of the standard deduction and 3 personal exemptions (one for yourself and, your spouse oneyou?re your step daughter ). The math you?re your withholding allowances would look like this (all figures below are for the 2015 tax year):
Standard deduction: 9,250
Personal exemptions: 3x 4K = 12K
Total tax deductions: 9,250 + 12K = 21250
Deductions divided by one personal exemption amount:21250/ 4,000 = 5.3125
In this example, you would claim HOH and 56 withholding allowances on her W-4 Form