<prompt> Human: I know the intent is to pretty much break even here and minimize money owed or refunded. Some people like the big refund checks, others dont want to let the government borrow a single interest-free penny.Currently, I qualify for 3 allowances and am married. Is there anything stopping me from claiming 0 if I decided I wanted to get a bigger refund, or claiming something like 8 if I essentially can borrow their money interest-free for the year?  <response>: The only restriction is you cant claim an outlandish number of allowances. I forget the exact wording, and theres no hard and fast rule to follow for the maximum allowances. But the IRS does require people to pay taxes throughout the year, so if you claim something like 10 allowances or exempt-from-withholding status without justification, and the IRS knows you normally only deduct a few thousand dollars 10 allowances 40,000 in deductions, the IRS will actually send something to you and your employer and have them correct it.In any case, if you claim extra allowances, just keep tax owed to under 1,000 to avoid an underpayment penalty. Its not a harsh penalty, but its enough that its not worth hoarding the IRS money over the year :Heres a relevant IRS statuteThe IRS uses information reported on Forms W-2 PDF, Wage and Tax Statement, to identify employees with withholding compliance problems. In some cases, where a serious under-withholding problem is found to exist for a particular employee, the IRS may issue a notice commonly referred to as a lock-in-letter to you specifying the withholding rate and maximum number of withholding allowances permitted for a specific employee for purposes of calculating the required withholding. The IRS will provide the employee with an opportunity to dispute the determination before you adjust withholding based on the lock-in letter. 