Right... so here's my understanding.

The $12k personal exemption means that, for people who qualify for that (i.e. single, not claimed by someone else) - you do not pay taxes on the first $12k of income you earn in a year.

So, if you were to earn $20,000... when you do your taxes, there's actually a step on the form where you'd subtract out the $12,000 exemption. (It's an "exemption" because that part of your income is *exempt* from having to pay taxes, i.e. it's tax-free, and you don't pay anything for that first $12k.)

So in that case, you'd earn $20,000. Then you get the exemption, and subtract that out... so $20,000 - $12,000 = $8,000 - that's what you'd owe taxes on. In the old days, you'd have to look at a paper booklet that shows you what the tax rate is for $8000 of income, but now the computer does it.

Since you made $11,000, if you were doing it yourself, you'd see that there's a step where you subtract the exemption, so $11,000 - $12,000 (exemption), and get a negative number (-$1000). That means that none of your income is subject to tax.

In that case, if you've had any taxes taken out of your paycheck, you should get a refund of all that money. If they took out less money this year than less year, you may get less back, because you will only get back the money that you paid.

It's like this...

Your employer has to make an educated guess at what you're going to owe in taxes at the end of the year. You can influence this a little when you fill out the form (when you're hired) that talks about how many exemptions, etc, you have.

But, your employer makes their best guess, based on your salary and the form you filled out. Then, they take out enough money every month (and send it to the government for you) to pay that tax bill.

In a perfect world, that number would be correct - and you wouldn't owe anything more or get a refund. But because the tax law is so crazy, it's almost never going to be spot-on. So, when you actually file your taxes, the government looks at what you owe, based on everything: your income, your exemptions, anything that comes in to play.. and what you've already paid.

If you've paid more than you owe, you get a refund!

If you didn't pay enough, you have to make up the difference.

If you made $11k, and if you qualify for the standard exemption (single, nobody else can claim you as a dependent) - you won't owe anything, b/c your income is less than the exemption. So, anything you've already paid (from your job taking it out of your paycheck) will come back to you.

Note: this doesn't include money that your job took for other things, like social security, medicaid, local taxes, etc. Just the federal taxes.

It's going to be OK! Really, don't worry... and as I said, if you go to one of the online tools, you can actually fill in all the fields and get a better idea of how it works. The ones I've looked at are all free to put in your info and see the outcome, and because your taxes are pretty simple, they shouldn't take too long.

*hugs*