question about Vitamin C

I was looking at my analysis, and only had 20% Vitamin C :( (probably all from the clementine I ate). I have Vitamin C supplements, they are 500mg each, but when I looked again at the analysis only 12mg made up that 20%! I took a half tablet and that put me at 436%. Is that bad? Why do the tablets have so much when according to this site 60mg=100% dv? Am I missing something here?

There's a great deal of controversy over how much vitamin C is optimal.  Humans (simians in general) are among the only animals that can't synthesize vitamin C -- we have to obtain it from food.  Part of the controversy stems from that our closest relatives (apes) consume far more vitamin C than humans typically do.  If it's good for them, why isn't it good for us ?

In any case, the RDA for vitamin C in the USA varies from 40 to 155 mg/day, depending on age, gender, pregnancy, lactation, and exposure to smoke.  Click here for all the gory details.  As that also shows, for people over 18 daily consumption of up to 2000 mg of vitamin C is considered at worst harmless, so you're nowhere close to trouble getting 500+12 = 512 mg.  Some serious researchers suggest you get much more than that -- as it says in that link, two-time Nobel prize winner Linus Pauling took 18000 mg of vitamin C per day, about 35 times more than you're getting with a full pill.  Since he lived to be 93, it's hard to make a convincing case that it hurt him .

Thanks for the info :)

Funny, I entered Clementines into my tagged foods this morning and a serving of two of them said it was around 240 or 250% of my DV of recommended vitamin C, if I recall. 

I don't think you can really get too much vitamin C, but if you are getting it naturally, do you even need a supplement?  I don't take a daily supplement, though I know it is recommended.  I just can't remember to take pills.  The only one I have had success with remembering to take is Chantix.  Nine days smoke free and finally lost a pound after two weeks of diet and exercise.  Woohoo!