Letu2019s be clear here:A W-4 form is NOT A TAX BILL. It has NOTHING to do with how much taxes you owe.All the W-4 does is insure that sufficient money is withheld from your paycheck to cover the tax debt you will owe that year. Whatever you put on the W-4 will have no affect whatsoever on the actual tax liability you have.How your tax liability (i.e. the total amount of money you much pay in income tax to the IRS) is dependent on a whole host of other things.What the W-4 provides is nothing more than a u201cguessu201d as to what this tax liability will be, so that the proper amount of money is regularly withheld to cover this liability. If you donu2019t properly withhold during the year (i.e. make regular proper-sized payments), you can assessed a fine by the IRS.How you compute the number of exemptions for the W-4 is completely dependent on your own tax situation, and cannot in any way be generalized to pra generic answer. All you are doing with the W-4 is trying to eso that the amount that youu2019ve had withheld during the year closely matches your tax liability come April 15th.