Without knowing your actual income and your elections on the W4, we can only guess.

What was your income and how much did you pay in total? Those are the two questions with taxes. They are just a simple math formula. If you owe, it means you didn't have enough withholding done during the year.

I'm not sure what a w4 is, do they have that in canada?

Taxable income around 70

Impossible to say without knowing your total paycheck.

Do you make $300K per year? Yeah, you still owe them money.

Do you make $30K per year? You probably have a math error somewhere.

If you have one job, then it is very easy to set up your withholding to be exactly the right amount so that you won't owe anything and won't have given the government an interest-free loan.

Income around 70 , total deducted is like 13,

70k a year and paid around 13k

In addition to giving more details, you should say "Canada" in the subject line.

People tend to assume US (particularly when you just use a $) and so any advice you get is going to be US-centric.

Since I see you mentioned Canada in another post, you will likely get more tailored answers in r/personalfinancecanada

Good point, thank you!

Try r/cantax

Thank you so much!

/r/PersonalFinanceCanada will probably be more helpful.

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I don't know anything about Canada (other than that it's cold and you have maple syrup), but are these brackets right? https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/learn/tax-brackets-canada

So according to this, your taxes would be $7529.55 + $4059.615 = $11589.16

Do you have a standard deduction like we have in the US (where a certain amount of your income is excluded from taxation)?

If this tax table is right and you had $70K in income with $13K withheld, then something is not right somewhere along the line.

I'm unfamiliar with Canadian tax law. You likely made some choices on withholding when you started work, or you have self-employment rules to follow. I'm unqualified to offer an opinion except that reading up on basic employment rules and taxes in your country might answer your questions.

Thanks, I am doin them myself so it's possible I just messed up somewhere along the way!

Suggest posting in personalfinancecanada for more specific help, but no one can really answer this without knowing a lot more about your income and tax situation.

Your total tax bill is your total tax bill. What was withheld during the year was an estimate based on how you filled out your withholding forms. You had too little withheld. You can increase your withholding. It won't lower how much you pay each year in taxes, but it will help you avoid a year-end surprise. Beyond that, you can try to make more money, advocate for lower taxes (and fewer government services as a result), or try to take advantage of more tax incentives.

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If you paid around 13k on 70k income then that is around 18.5%. If they are asking you to make an additional payment of $1600, bringing total taxes paid to 14.6, then that would be close to 20%. Is the effective tax rate on your bracket about 20%? If so, then that's your answer.

Thank you so so much, this is the exact reason and now I know! Was so frustrated and confused lol

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W4 is a US thing that tells the employer how much to deduct from your taxes. Essentially, it tells the employer about other income or deductions they don't know about.

It looks like the Canadian equivalent is a T4.

Your post has been removed because we don't allow political discussions, political baiting, or soapboxing (rule 6). This includes questions or discussions about proposed legislation or government policy changes.

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You mentioned you're in Canada, so you can use this calculator to estimate your tax due, which might help you figure out where the discrepancy is. I don't know how Canadian taxes work, so I'm not sure if that sum includes provincial tax or not.

You may have better luck on /r/PersonalFinanceCanada/ since this is a very Canada-specific question.