Estimating 2020 Taxes

I'm watching some college football on television this Saturday and decided to do some preliminary estimates on our taxes this year. I'm not sure if I ever did any estimates around the time 2019 taxes were due or not. I know that things have been in limbo not knowing when my husband would get his promotion. He is on the promotion list as of late May. Now we wait for the military to get to his sequence number for actual orders to promote. It will not be October, so at most he will have two months of increased pay. 

We do qualify to take the American Opportunity Tax Credit for our youngest daughter in 2020. Our credits are a $500 dependent credit, a $1500 non refundable credit (AOTC) and a $1000 refundable credit (AOTC). 

Without the raise we will owe approximately $228. With two months of increased pay we will owe $270. I'm assuming the withholding will increase, otherwise the amount we owe will be more. 

I did all the math by hand looking at last year's return and finding all the numbers and tax charts for 2020 to make it all come together. My notebook is full of all sorts of numbers. I could have looked for a potential calculator. This way, I feel like I know it was done correctly, using our real situation and numbers. It is still an estimate, but I can definitely handle owing less than $300 next spring. 

My next task is to do some tax planning for 2021. The raise is significant enough to put us into a higher tax bracket. Withholding will have to be adjusted, so we don't owe a significant amount. I need to consider what tax education tax credits we may take, maybe none if we use Post 911 GI Bill funds. This means I need to figure out our plan for paying tuition next year, which is only a few months away. I also need to decide if we put more into retirement to offset taxes. I'm leaning towards a yes on this one!