I did them on Saturday, which is a lot later than usual. They were pretty easy, so I can't really complain.
I did my taxes one night last week, which was also a lot later than usual. I use free fillable forms online.
I use free fillable forms online.
Yeah, me too.
We went over to having them done professionally when our oldest entered college and we encountered FAFSA, and now CSS. And I've had a half dozen employers some years, plus 1099 work for which I need to claim home office etc.
Student aid forms require your taxes be done very early, so we almost always have them done as soon the last tax statement arrives from an employer, usually my 1099 in February sometime. We'd do it earlier if we could.
Next to CSS, taxes are a cinch.
6: Did the IRS accept your return on your first try?
Gigantic unexpected bill, which can only be paid for by incurring another gigantic bill for this tax year. Also ongoing relationship with the super fun, real estate value destroying Alternative Minimum Tax. Also also yearly review of unexamined issues forcing recognition of the stunning extent of personal financial mismanagement FTW. I'm basically running the business of my life like a drunk, moronic 19 year old who somehow took over a family company.
I finished yesterday. My oldest kid seems to have picked up from friends at school the idea that paying taxes is "a lot of money", and that they're a horrible thing. He's terrified that someone is going to raid his piggy bank to make him pay taxes. I have tried to explain that it's how we pay for roads and police and fire fighters, and that I'm glad we have those things so overall I'm happy to pay our share. But I admit that I did a lot of grumbling about the process of paying the taxes, which were a real bear this year (for boring reasons), and wondered aloud why can't I just write a damn check and be done. I'm not sure that helped him.
Our accountant e-mailed us at 2:31 a.m. this morning to say that he is behind and is filing an extension on our behalf. It sounds like he might get to it by next week, but he didn't pin himself down.
I was happy with TurboTax for a year or two before we started going with this guy, and we probably aren't going to start using the program again just because of the delay, but it's on my mind.
8: Yes! Which means no one in Nia's family tried to claim her this year, which someone did last year even though I (or Lee) was the only one who had a right to. That's kind of sad but maybe good and makes my life way easier.
Did mine end of January, simple, accepted and refunds sent quickly. The federal withholding was as close to accurate as makes no difference, but I got a nice little chunk from the state, whose withholding I presume is less precise.
We forgot about the tax credit for having a kid in 2013, so we were pretty chuffedstokedpumped happy about that.
I know we should disdain TurboTax, but damn, it makes things easy.
So, um, I recently bragged on FB that I had my taxes done weeks ago, only I hadn't mailed them.
And now I went to sign & mail them and discovered that apparently the .pdf didn't save properly and my filled out & finished forms are, in fact, blank. Oops.
9,13: I've used it free fillable forms for a several years now, and I've yet to have my return accepted the first time. This was my best year yet -- only rejected once, and I was able to figure out right away what the problem was.
17: That comment is an illustration of the type of carelessness that results in my returns being rejected.
I know we should disdain TurboTax, but damn, it makes things easy
"Makes things easy" relative to the US baseline, which Turbotax is working hard to ensure never improves. Oh, and you get to pay them $99 for the privilege.
Got mine in middle of last month. The federal refund has already come and gone; waiting impatiently on the state refund to arrive, but the nation's shittiest state government is agonizingly slow on the trigger.
TurboTax really does make it easy. The one year I didn't use it, I miscalculated something pretty egregiously and ended up having to set up a payment plan six months later.
Trust fund kid, although my spouse and I live solely off our wages and think of the trust fund as being earmarked for the next generation. At this time of year, I receive a wire for an amount which is far larger than our combined incomes, to allow us to pay for our taxes. (Not every year, of course.)
We're still in the process. We have an accountant for not-interesting reasons, and he has not gotten me the forms yet. I'm feeling a wee bit anxious.
Also, I'm pissed that Turbotax is completely ignorant about local taxes, at least here. I recently got a tax bill, with penalties and interest as large as the tax itself, for tax years 2010-2012. The city revenue dept. just said "Yeah, lots of people who use turbotax miss the local return. Sorry."
(Not every year, of course.)
Why not every year?
Wait, we have a trust fund kid in our midst?
I assumed it meant they didn't make much money during the recession.
24: presumably because markets fluctuate?
I found something TurboTax fucked up this year, which I knew enough to go back and recalculate things or they would have made me overpay. (Briefly, they asked about an item that affects MAGI- teacher supply above-the-line deduction of $250- after they had already calculated other things like excess IRA contributions that depend on MAGI.)
I efiled federal and had it accepted, state I was going to mail but forgot the stupid W2 papers at home so I have to go get those then find a post office that's open late.
Since moving, I'm reminded each year at tax time that I really need to unload the place I'm renting out where I used to live. Refund-wise I've gone from getting a nice several thousand $$ windfall each year to getting enough for dinner at a nice restaurant.
Anyone want a nice condo in Cleveland? Granite counter tops!
Wait, so is this finally the thread for sharing incomes, tax bills, and SAT scores?
23: I would think expecting TT to handle local taxes for several thousands of different municipalities would be unrealistic.
Refund-wise I've gone from getting a nice several thousand $$ windfall each year to getting enough for dinner at a nice restaurant.
It's pretty easy to increase your tax refund. Just tell your employer to withhold more from each paycheck.
I'm probably going to get a decent sized refund, which goes to show how unfair the system is.
Just this morning I got a scam text from "H&R Block" about a problem with my federal returns. Except that we got our federal refund* almost two weeks ago, and I used TurboTax.
*One student income, one low-level state bureacrat income starting halfway into the year and unpaid for several months of maternity leave, and a new dependent. Woo hoo, tax refund!!!!!
32: How many local governments levy income taxes, though?
31: Get 4 rock-hard inches back from the IRS using this one weird trick.
For complicated and boring reasons, I tried to calculate out myself (because TurboTax wouldn't and can't do it do it) the California community property allocations for a married couple filing separately. Good times! We ended up not doing it, still not sure that was the right idea, but that was at least 9 solid hours of work and a lot of looking up the law.
36: Not mine. I didn't realize municipal income taxes were a thing, to be honest.
but that was at least 9 solid hours of work and a lot of looking up the law.
Well, at least it was billable.
I thought most or all municipalities had income taxes. All the ones in Pennsylvania seem to, in my experience.
37: Increase your withholdings?
It's a goddamn computer, apo. Computers specialize in doing thousands of things, don't they?
(If they can't actually be bothered to file the local returns, okay, I get that. But it seems like they ought to at least have a database of municipalities with local tax filing obligations, so if you're using the program and live/work in one of those municipalities, it could at least warn you: "Please check with your local municipality as you may have additional filing obligations." I honestly had no idea--the city doesn't mail me anything. If I'd gone to a local accountant instead of used turbotax, I'd have avoided hundreds of dollars in penalties and interest.)
Stay of execution!
Massachusetts announced today it has extended the deadline for taxpayers to file personal income tax returns after the state's e-filing website experienced delays.
Taxpayers will have until midnight Friday, April 18 to file state tax returns, Massachusetts Department of Revenue spokeswoman Maryann Merigan said in a statement.
Done since February, since I never want to wait an extra day for the refund (and 'cause they're easy). I suppose I could lower the withholding, but I wouldn't notice that and I looooooove the refund.
I do our taxes with FFF, too. Last year, the boyfriend's worked on the first try, but mine took some silly number (four?) for reasons that escape me. This time, his had the same problem. He was very displeased until I reminded him he could always do them himself if he wasn't happy with my work. I do ours pretty early because my pay has no withholding for either state or federal, which means I need to do estimated payments, and I'm always worried I'll have an enormous amount due that I haven't budgeted for.
32: MD levies state, county, and city, about 3% for each, but it's not a separate filing, just extra on the state tax form.
I'm an employee, so my taxes are deducted at source by Pay As You Earn. I probably can claim some refunds for health expenses so I should dig out the receipts. (Have to do it within 4 years.) The tax credit for my health insurance is applied at source already.
I vastly prefer the UK tax system to the American one. It's easier, simpler, and I think I actually pay less in taxes than I did in the US. PAYE is wonderful; even better is that *someone else* evaluates what you've paid and determines if you've over paid or under paid.
I'm busy drinking wine instead of fixing my blank tax forms. Fuck it.
49 -- I feel like we had a thread once about tax evasion in Europe where I learned that it's staggeringly high. Like, the German equivalent of me pretty much automatically has a few accounts in Switzerland or Luxembourg that are used to stash away big chunks of income.
Computers specialize in doing thousands of things, don't they?
But it takes them forever to walk from one municipality to the next.
I had also never heard of local income tax. They're not the norm.
@35. The 'scam' email from HRBlock may be a real problem with a fake return that somebody else has filed with your identity.
Refund fraud (use somebody else's ID to file a return and get a refund from their incorrectly reported taxes) is fairly common. Here in Seattle, there's been a lot of it this year. The Archdiocese got hacked, and church-goers have been finding that their information was used.
Dumb question, but I can't figure out how to tell which USPS's are open past 6 today, despite this link. The one in Heebie Town is not open past 5, so at this point I'm looking at driving up into Austin or San Antonio (god fucking dammit) and I still can't figure it out, short of calling them all.
We use TaxAct, which seems to be basically equivalent to TurboTax except that it costs I think $18 for federal and one state instead of $99 or whatever TurboTax charges. I occasionally think hiring an accountant would make sense, since I guess our situation is pretty complicated: wife is self-employed and pays estimated taxes; she also uses a home office so we have a little deduction to figure for that based on how much of the utilities/improvements we can attribute to that; we live in a 2-family house and rent out the other unit, so there's that schedule C to do, and again deducting part of the utilities/improvements, and so forth.
It seems like all the work is in collecting the documents, though, which we'd have to do anyway. Once that's done, we're just punching numbers into a computer the same as H&R Block would do. Plus the program remembers all of our who-uses-how-many-square-feet and depreciation numbers from year to year, so the difficult math (such as it was) we only had to do once.
To be fair to Turbotax, which I've been using for 10ish years now, I thought the user interface changes they made between last year and this year were a pretty dramatic improvement.
Most post offices don't stay open late on tax day anymore -- they started changing that a couple of years ago, in the face of budgetary problems and the increasing popularity of online filing. So, LA no longer has late hours on tax day. It might be hard to find one in your area.
The 'scam' email from HRBlock may be a real problem with a fake return that somebody else has filed with your identity.
From googling around a bit, I think it's more likley that it's a scam trying to get me to give up info about refunds issued on a prepaid card. I might be a touch more worried if I hadn't already filed and gotten everything accepted and refund in the bank. Though I'll certainly be on the lookout.
I'll file an extension again.
|| This just crossed my desk. DC Circuit (ARR) declines to rule filibuster unconstitutional. Because Biden is the wrong defendant. |>
I didn't file taxes one year. They were much harder than usual because I had moved and my new job was weird, and I put them off until the last minute, and then a while after the last minute, and I eventually figured that (a) doing anything about it would just call attention to myself, and (b) I was probably owed a refund overall anyway, judging by previous years.
But now that I mention it, if I owed money to one state they wouldn't care that I was due a refund from another state. Well, let's hope they never catch up to me...
The CPA said "15 more minutes". I feel like I might cry. Plus I've got a bunch of students in my office, so I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to kick them out and get to the post office with everything ready to go by 5, anyway.
I mean, it's fine. We can find another office. Everything is just extra work and I'm already tired.
I also assumed municipal income tax is the norm. I also have experience with PA municipalities. Hrm, given that and our high transfer tax, I should do some more research into why our city's finances have been so bad recently. (Sure, traumatic depopulation will do that, but that's not precisely a new thing.)
Anyway, taxes finished a few weeks ago. Owed the feds and the state a lot. Oops. At least in theory we were making interest off of it, not them.
Mailed off my payments yesterday, after my accountant filed for an extension because we discovered an issue with one of my 1099s. Then after several phone calls I found out that the problematic info hadn't ever been reported to the IRS, so I could have just filed on time anyway. Tant pis.
Dirty little secret: the IRS is not going to come after you if you're postmarked April 16th. I've done it several years with nary an issue.
I've been holding off to use the printer at work after hours and will now miss the deadline. I was going to get clever with filing state return early in order to get the refund to then turn around and use to pay the bulk of the federal tax, but forgot until it was too late to get the state return back in time--unfortunately, I told the HRBlock program that I was going to print and mail and I can't seem to go back and e-file, which is a giant PITA.
It arrived. The whole thing has been ridiculously down to the wire.
64: Pension was underfunded. Still is.
I take it back--figured out how to e-file. Under the wire, bitchez!
The local tax here is a wage tax, not an income tax. As long as you aren't running a business, it takes two seconds to complete.
As long as you aren't running a business, it takes two seconds to complete.
This is true here as well, but that doesn't help those people who don't know that they need to complete it.
SHOOT ME, DAMN IT, SHOOT ME IF YOU HEAR ME TALKIN' 'BOUT VOTIN' DEMOCRAT AGAIN!
Actually, I did mine in February and they were quite simple.
61: If your state tax department is like ours, calling shamefaced and asking for help getting yourself right with them will get a helpful response and a workable payment schedule. They're very used to confused taxpayers, and don't get hostile until they become convinced that you're a real crook, which is a threshold that you're nowhere near.
76 is true for the IRS, IME, as well. If you ask them for a reasonable plan, there's not a huge amount of money at stake, and you just want to own up to and fix an error or set up a payment plan, they're very understanding and helpful and will work with you.
Went into tax season thinking we'd get a small refund. Came out realizing that we would owe for both state and federal (not a huge amount.)
Had a really horrible weekend because I was trying to figure out where the money would come from, while we're in the process of closing on a home.
Turbo Tax shit the bed on me this year. We are in a weird-ass tax situation, and the software couldn't handle it. And the new Turbo Tax interface was so dumbed down, that I wasn't able to directly access the forms to fix what I needed to. And then there was a bug in the checking process that wouldn't have let me proceed anyway. I ended up having to do the entire thing all over again with a pencil and paper. Which sucked.
I knew I had to pay CT town property tax on my car but didn't receive a bill until it was taped to my car window when they put the boot on the car. Now that I'm back in CA, I'm hoping to get back to CA registration/license/etc ASAP.
Used TaxAct again this year; they sold themselves to me by successfully pointing out, a couple of years ago, that some capital losses can be applied against regular income, which saved a bundle (I though capital losses could only ever be applied to capital gains, and possibly wouldn't have noticed just reading through the forms).
This year, it told me I owed a big chunk of money, mostly thanks to AMT, which was an unpleasant surprise, so I avoided filing/paying it until late last week, hoping some brilliant correction would occur to me. No such luck. I also now no longer fully understand what it's doing, which bothers me.
(Some friends of mine with vaguely similar and complicated taxes paid a professional, and were not happy - a couple of big things were wrong, and they spent almost as much time proofing what the pro did as they usually spend doing it themselves. "We didn't hire you because this was easy.")
In my view and experience the $150-$500 a return private accountants are almost never any better than TurboTax; they are just doing exactly the same thing you are, and unless you happen to find someone who is unusually, and particularly, experienced with your personal weird tax situation they won't be able to help you out at all. I used a guy once who ended up costing me several thousand bucks in penalties. If you have a serious tax issue with a lot of money at stake and want an accountant to give competent advice, you need to hire a CPA and pay the CPA a much more serious amount of money.
66 is eminently sensible and I wish I'd thought of it myself when I was unnecessarily panicking.
Anyway I got to the post office before it closed.
I forgot to put my SS number on my check. And daytime telephone number. And the form #.
Even the IRS acknowledges that there's no penalty for filing late if you're owed a refund.
To be fair to Turbotax, which I've been using for 10ish years now, I thought the user interface changes they made between last year and this year were a pretty dramatic improvement.
See, I thought the exact opposite. There was nice eye candy, but they've hidden a lot of the numbers - making them difficult to audit with a glance. They also made it very difficult to edit anything without having to answer a whole goddamn set of questions all over again, every time. Although that may have been a feature of previous years as well.
No, they made the numbers easier to audit at a glance, and it's now also much easier to edit a particular section without having to answer a whole goddamn set of questions all over again. Maybe you got a defective copy.
"Hard to edit a particular section without having to answer a whole goddamn set of questions all over again" has actually been my #1 complaint about the software in years past, which has now been totally resolved.
Here's my question: we've discussed before how TurboTax et al killed simple tax filing.
Why does it require a legislative act in the first place? Governments move services online all the time and improve functionality without needing congressional approval. Why does this?
And I came up with 95 without reading to the end of Benen's commentary where he says the same thing.
I'm still using the 2011 edition. I just white-out the dates in the printed version.
I also have question 97 about the public option, but I get there that it's just politically loaded and wouldn't have been feasible. But it does seem like the government is allowed to sell a product without congressional approval.
I was using the web version. Maybe you were using the desktop version?
97: Didn't Congress explicitly make it illegal, at the behest of Intuit lobbying?
Here in Seattle, there's been a lot of it this year. The Archdiocese got hacked
Down here too, which I found out when my ex's return was rejected (she subsequently found out that it happened to friends in Tacoma and a bunch of people down here). It's widespread, extending to schools as well as churches.
Not sure about 97, but I think 100 would violate the ACA. So, no.
Yeah, I'm sure it would, but I wondered it at the time - why not just privately create it ten years ago, but of course I know why not.
By "privately" I mean secretly, not like "privately".
The government has really got to stop asking Congress for permission to implement things that will benefit the public good.
why not just privately create it ten years ago
Under what legal authority?
That's a genuine question. I'm not saying it's impossible, I just don't know how it could have been done.
Yeah, I don't know, mostly because I don't know the missions of the specific departments. But I imagine it could plausibly fit somewhere.
They didn't create the complexity in the tax code. They're just stuck with administering it.
I've seen claims like this a lot--don't blame the IRS, blame congress!--and I think they are basically bullshit. Sure, the tax code is complicated, and that's congress' fault, but the tax regulations are vastly more complicated, and those are written by the IRS. They are supposed to be merely implementing the code, of course, but that could be done with much less simplicity. That's not to say it should--a complicated code is going to take complicated regulations to implement effectively, but you can't really let the IRS entirely off the hook for the complexity.
On the other hand, if the IRS actually did write the tax code, instead of congress, I suspect we'd have a hell of a lot better, and probably also much simpler, tax system.
Just got out of tax hell. By far my most complex tax year - filings in five jurisdictions, including federal, and tax events in my life that I've never had to deal with before. I have mixed feelings about the H&R Block program, but it seems to have gotten me through it.
I just had my worst tax related injury ever. I needed my W2s to file state by my (because I'm not paying 30 fucking dollars for the right to save the state effort in processing my taxes) so I was looking under our mail bin, and one of the feet of the bin had fallen off leaving some kind of exposed staple or nail and sliced a two inch long gash on my thumb. If TurboTax let you eFile state for free as well this never would have happened. I should return the W2s with blood on them.
Yeah, the one year I hired someone to do my taxes here in Utah, she charged $600 and fucked it up. She had also promised that it would only cost $400 and then didn't warn me that she went over the cost. I was paying her to double check my determination that we couldn't take advantage of the first-time home credit and I was right. So good thing I spent all that money.
This year, I have $15,000 worth of deductions that I can't take because of the AMT. We also pay an absurd amount for the privilege of being married. I really hate the government right now and I told my husband we should get divorced. And then he tried to be funny, but it made me cry because I'm eight-months pregnant. I sure could use $5 right now.
This year, I have $15,000 worth of deductions that I can't take because of the AMT.
Gotta figure that's higher than at least a few commenters' incomes.
Gotta figure that's higher than at least a few commenters' incomes.
Right. I say this as someone who's been subject to the AMT: if you're subject to the AMT, you don't get to complain about it.
118: Not to mention their SAT scores and penis length.
I didn't know the AMT rate was as low as it is, looking it up. I guess deductions add up at high incomes!
Right. I say this as someone who's been subject to the AMT: if you're subject to the AMT, you don't get to complain about it.
I'm not subject to the AMT, but I think there's got to be an exception to this, in line with my comment 11: if you're subject to the AMT, you don't get to complain about paying it, but surely you should be able to complain about the ridiculously complicated process that's required to calculate it. You have to fill out two separate tax returns, for chrissakes, and then basically throw one of the away.
119: Right. I say this as someone who's been subject to the AMT: if you're subject to the AMT, you don't get to complain about it.
Gotta say, that's been my sense as well, but it seems that any number of normally right-thinking people are against it. Diane Rehm's show this morning was on the horribly complicated tax system -- and good lord, we surely need to simplify it, was the premise -- and in the course of discussion, the AMT came up: one panelist said it only affects people making $200k or more. (I have not corroborated this.) I know those are real people too, but honestly, is this causing suffering?
OT: I'm watching Columbo try to pin a murder on Emperor Shaddam IV and trying to remember where I have seen the supporting cast members. I think middle age is going to work out just great for me.
119: This, with the mild quibble that it can be an unpleasant surprise the first time you're hit with it, especially if that's due to marriage. But still, it's a sign that you're doing, at least on income, pretty damn alright.
I did mine in early February. I will now read the thread.
I filed my federal return about a week ago. I haven't even started on the state return because Virgina's deadline isn't until May 1.
Figuring out the AMT is easier, though, isn't it? Less deductions to worry about, lower overall rate, so lots of deductions under the normal system = higher bill under AMT. Besides, the above mentioned software programs all take care of that second process for you and decide which one to keep.
128: Yes. We (well, I, being the designed tax monkey) used the dreaded Intuit product and the additional work for the AMT was minimal.
79: And the new Turbo Tax interface was so dumbed down, that I wasn't able to directly access the forms to fix what I needed to.
I used TurboTax for the first time this year; I've done my taxes myself with pencil & paper -- actually spreadsheet -- in the past, so I don't know whether its interface is better or worse than in the past. I'd have liked to be able to see the figures I was putting in in a more spreadsheet format, y'know, with line items. As it was I had to decipher where it put various expenses I input. For example: it turns out that deducting a vehicle registration fee goes under Personal Property Taxes on Schedule A. Who knew.
That said, it made me itemize deductions. Having not owned property in the past, I'd never bothered, but it turned out to to be a boon. I'm now aware of several things I should probably do in future. I might even file an amended return for last year.
119, 121 -- The AMT generally matters for people who are extremely well off, but not the truly rich who are making more than $600-700k/year (for whom most of the deductions are phased out anyway, and who also have large enough incomes so that the higher overall rate affects them more, making the AMT unnecessary; the AMT only applies if you pay more under it than you would under the regular tax regime).
45 is completely right. There is no reason that Turbo Tax couldn't have a list by municipality and at least alert you to the fact that there *was* a tax.
One of my biggest grievances with my home state is the way its parochialism translates into utter disregard for what it's like to move here from another state. Ha ha, can't find the polling place? Why should we put signs up? Everyone knows where they vote! Didn't know to pay the local wage tax? Too bad for you. Should have known to ask!
I pay 3.49% wage tax to Philadelphia because I work there. I get credit for those taxes to the wage tax in my home municipality. I do have to pay wage taxes to my home municipality for the money I earn *outside* my regular job (library job + freelancing) because that doesn't happen in Philadelphia.
This year Turbo Tax hollered at me for not being able to predict my freelance income. I had no idea I was going to earn it, guys.
Also, 87 is right. Sorry, urple.
Also, I didn't get 1099s from everyone so I had to do a handwritten explanation for the locals. I'm hoping they're happy enough to have my tax money that they don't care.
One of the federal contractors I consulted for sent me a 1099 in MARCH. They apologized, but still. Whoops -- we forgot about the entire advisory board! Sorry guys! Here are your 1099s five weeks late!
Also mine were a little more complicated than usual because I have rental income, and will be weird again this year for the same reason. Maybe I'll unload my albatross of an apartment and they will not be weird next year.
They would also have been complicated due to living in two states except it took me 4.5 months to find a job in the second state and then it was 2014 so that took care of that.
Also, even on TurboTax the AMT sucks.* Not necessarily because it's so enormously hard to calculate (though ,even on TT, it can be, if like me you inherited a tiny bit of farm property that is almost worthless except for purposes of making certain tax calculations extraordinarily annoying). But because you get almost all the way through your taxes, things look sort of OK and then BOOM the AMT shows up and fucks you.
*For the payer, probably not society -- generally "broaden the base, simplify the system, soak the rich" are good tax rules, and the AMT does 2/3.
design[at]ed tax monkey
This should really be made an official substitute term for "tax matters partner."
I gave up doing my taxes personally a few years ago when the complexity hit a certain threshold. I hope my accountant is getting it all right! She seems diligent and nice. At the very least I'm pretty sure I'm not forming any culpable mental state by giving her true answers to all the questions she asks and signing the pretty papers she sends me.
If you have a serious tax issue with a lot of money at stake and want an accountant to give competent advice, you need to hire a CPA and pay the CPA a much more serious amount of money.
This certainly accords with my experience. There were enough things new to us in NM that we got a recommendation from my wife's co-worker about who to go to, and it was not a good experience. It was faster, easier, and cheaper to do it ourselves. That said, there were some awesome perks working there for my wife; the state of New Mexico has a $5000 tax credit for rural healthcare providers, and rent paid on government housing, when other housing isn't available, is deductible.
(But let's not talk about how NM gave her $40,000 in loan repayment and she called them back, after I said DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE CALL THEM, because a co-worker had happened to mention that she might not have been STRICTLY FUCKING SPEAKING eligible for the award and OF COURSE THEY FUCKING TOOK IT BACK.)
138.last: but I bet you got something even more valuable in return, didn't you?
And then her dad didn't punish her for chopping down the cherry tree.
Your wife sounds lovely. When's she going to drop by and say hi?
139: Ogged cut off all his hair and sold it to buy her a gold chain for her stethoscope that first Christmas together, but wouldn't you know it, you don't really put stethoscopes on chains and Native Americans don't have detectable heartbeats. It really put the meaning of the holiday in perspective as they drove home in the black BMW she'd bought him.
I am such a sucker for Gift of the Magi jokes.
133: This year Turbo Tax hollered at me for not being able to predict my freelance income
That's a novel idea. My income as a self-employed person turned out to be less than I'd anticipated.
A question arises:
This doesn't matter for 2013 taxes, since the ACA, aka Obamacare, wasn't in effect for 2013, but in applying for ACA exchange coverage and subsidy for 2014, I likely overestimated my expected income for 2014. Come time to file taxes for 2014, will there be a way to recoup the difference in subsidy?
kermit? Minivet? I know that if one underestimated one's income, the IRS can retroactively dock you, but if one overestimated it?
Turbo Tax hollered at me for not even keeping pace with inflation and suggested I apply myself.
I did mine and my parents and my BF's in the past couple of weeks. Actually, he did it.
The lawyers screwed up the K-1 and made something taxable to them which should have been taxable to me. It took them so damn long to fix it. PLus the gave me a K-1 as a resident of DC. I thought that I was going to have to file an extension. I didn't get even a basic K-1 until early to mid March.
I owed more money than I thought I would but not a lot. I wondered whether I should claim 0 deductions on my employment stuff so that I can owe less.
TurboTax Deluxe is better than Basic Turbo Tax if you have any trust income, but it is not *that* easy. I mean, I don't have much trust income at all, but it almost --I say, almost--makes me sympathize with rich people.
Taxes almost done here - I filed the extension on Friday, so it's cool. Still need to locate a couple of misplaced 1099s so I can use the official numbers instead of a close estimate.
I filed for an extension and will do them last minute on 10/15. At least I started doing them every year! I used to do two tax returns every two years. The IRS never cared, because I always got a refund.
I just wanted to win at procrastinating.
I heard Sting takes eight months to file his taxes.
According to the link in 32, local wage/income taxes originated during the Depression as a way for cash-strapped municipalities to make up for lost property tax revenue. Philadelphia was the first to institute one, in 1939, which would explain their popularity in Pennsylvania specifically. Relatedly, my uncle mentioned to me today that he had mailed in his local tax check but forgot to include the tax form, so he's not sure what the city is going to do.
Did ours yesterday which was later than usual. We do the TurboTax thing because it's easy and our situation is pretty straightforward. We keep our exemptions low enough to get 1-2K back every year and it's always pleasant.
Just filed my taxes H&R Block online and woohoo doing it as a single person is much better than as a married person. AMT really really dings high income (100k-150k each) married equal earning people with dependents compared to filing as single. We both had to withhold as single with 0 exemptions and still owed thousands. But I got a nice refund from the overwitholding that continued even after the divorce was final. Also moving out of CA in early 2013 was key - I support an income tax but it is personally nice to live in a state without an income tax (WA)
I support an income tax but it is personally nice to live in a state without an income tax
Indeed. Only having to worry about federal taxes was one of the reasons it was so easy for me this year.
Just filed. Unexpected money back, when I thought I'd owe a bit. I like the new TurboTax interface, but I guess the last time I used an online service was like eight years ago.
I think I've basically guaranteed myself an audit this year. 9.4k income, and so getting $300 in EITC credit, but making a 5k Roth IRA contribution (I hadn't realized I could still make 2013 contributions until today). I was using TaxAct and couldn't figure out how to choose not to take the EITC thing, but then forgot about it by the time it came to actually send the stupid thing. Oh well. I don't *think* I did anything legitimate, but it sure seems sketchy.
Err, I don't think I did anything *illegitimate*.
TaxAct was pretty easy, except it kept logging me out for no reason. The whole process would have been pretty painless except for the IRA thing, which had me suddenly panicking about retirement etc, and opening some new thing right then and there. Which might have been stupid but whatever.
Because work did something stupid and withheld my travel expenses until last year, then paid it out in bulk, I actually had to pay extra tax this year instead of getting money back.
In the Netherlands we had to do our taxes by April 1st, so It's long been done and because this is a hellish socialist country, much of your data is automatically delivered from your employer, bank etc to the kind tax people, so you just have to check it to the data you have yourself, fill in anything missed and viola. It took me about two hours to fill in, two more to stop swearing.
I'm a salaried worker in Germany, so am on the wonderful PAYE system. Still have to file American taxes every year though, to demonstrate that I earn under the threshold for foreign income exemption, and therefore owe them nothing. Also, have to report my foreign bank accounts. Fortunately, I do get an automatic 2 month extension on filing, so long as I include a letter claiming said extension.
I'm taking the foreign income exception too, but apparently it means I have to stay out of the US for 330 days this year. I have a 33 day New Hampshire vacation coming up in July, which is cutting it tight. I'm really hoping there aren't any family emergencies or anything that brings me back to the States for more than a couple days. And I guess Thanksgiving is out.
76/77: Interesting, thanks for the advice.
The amount of money at stake wasn't "huge" originally. Are interest and penalties likely to have made it huge in the mean time? Let's say this was five years ago and it would have been $500 - probably less but after all this time I'm not sure, that's a nice round number. Are we talking about $1,000 now? $5,000? $50,000?
Also, should I get in touch with everyone I didn't file a return with that year, or just the state I'm likely to owe money to?
I actually paid the money to e-file my parents return. They neither owe money nor are owed any back, but I wanted to have a filed return for Medicaid 5-year reviews when my Mom needs to go to a nursing home, and I didn't want to go over to their place to get them to sign the form.
It is no accident that PAYE was introduced in 1944, by Sir William "Report" Beveridge.
Worst thing about forming a business was having to do taxes. Best thing about finding some success is now the accountant deals with all that bullshit, including personal tax returns. Yay!
23: I would think expecting TT to handle local taxes for several thousands of different municipalities would be unrealistic.
Why? The sole reason Turbo Tax exists (as a product, not Intuit as a company) is to make filing tax returns easier. If it does so by just ignoring a bunch of taxes, that seems like a pretty big failing. It's not like this is some young start-up either - it's one of the most widely used pieces of software in America.
Still have to file American taxes every year though, to demonstrate that I earn under the threshold for foreign income exemption, and therefore owe them nothing. Also, have to report my foreign bank accounts. Fortunately, I do get an automatic 2 month extension on filing, so long as I include a letter claiming said extension.
I haven't seen the 'report foreign bank accounts' bit -- can you direct me to the relevant form?
I don't really plan on ever moving back to the US and part of me just wants to stop filing. But you never know what is in store, so I know that's not really an option.
171: I didn't file U.S. returns for ~8 years while I lived overseas, and it hasn't caught up to me yet. My overseas tax rate was high enough that foreign tax credit easily would have eliminated any U.S. tax liability, so I wasn't avoiding taxes, just paperwork. If you earn less than the threshold for the foreign income exclusion ($97,600), you probably do not owe any U.S. income tax, and can relax. The IRS is only interested in pursuing people for non-filing if they actually owe money.
Oh, I definitely don't owe anything. I just want to keep in good standing in case I do ever move back.
173: If you left a chair in your parking place, at least you'll have a parking place if you move back.
171: Here. Note you're only obligated if your foreign liquid assets exceeded $10,000 at any point in the year.
172:I didn't file for seven years because I was a graduate student and my income was negligible, but once I started earning, I started reporting. Enforcement is definitely weighted toward the malefactors of great wealth class, but technically if you don't file and claim your exemption, it's nullified, and in principle they could demand back taxes on all that income plus interest and penalties.
I've still got at least 3 1/2 years before I'm eligible for German citizenship, upon which I would promptly and gladly renounce US citizenship and tell these people to go fuck themselves forever.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, they don't allow you to renounce US citizenship to avoid tax liabilities, so if you ever plan to renounce, you don't want anything outstanding...
102: Didn't Congress explicitly make it illegal, at the behest of Intuit lobbying?
I can't be the only person who misread this as "Inuit".
OT: I just saw google glasses on a guy. Are you supposed to drive while wearing them?
176: Thank you very much! I realise that I must have seen that and disregarded it last year as I don't have more than $10,000 in my name.
I am eligible for UK citizenship next year. I don't plan on renouncing US citizenship, though - I want to maintain dual citizenship for ease of visiting my family and so that any potential offspring can make their own choices. So I have to keep them happy! (Also, I'm on IBR for my student loans, and you need tax records for that.)
178: I read it at least three times before I read it correctly. I could not figure out why the Inuit would care.
The Eskimos have 67 words for taxes.
I am eligible for UK citizenship next year. I don't plan on renouncing US citizenship, though - I want to maintain dual citizenship for ease of visiting my family and so that any potential offspring can make their own choices.
I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure you can't, in theory anyway. The State Department is more chilled out about dual citizenship than it used to be, but they still frown on anything which requires an oath of loyalty or similar affirmative action (as opposed to automatically becoming a naturalised dual citizen). And I'm pretty sure becoming a naturalised UK citizen as an adult requires an oath (not least because my parents did just that earlier this year).
The Eskimos have 67 words for taxes.
And all their assets are frozen.
182: I have gone back and forth on this. My first reading of that page several years ago left me with the same impression you have. I intend, of course, on asking an actual immigration lawyer when it comes up, and if your knowledge comes from one, then I of course bow to that.
But I think this clause is key:
"states that U.S. nationals are subject to loss of nationality if they perform certain specified acts voluntarily and with the intention to relinquish U.S. nationality. Briefly stated, these acts include"
You have to have the intention to relinquish US nationality. If you don't have the intention, then my reading is that you get to keep it. However, I'm no lawyer and could certainly be wrong.
182: the law seems to say that you lose US nationality if you, in teralia, take an oath of loyalty to another country with the intention of giving up US nationality and Paren specifically doesn't want to do that.
Pwning a UK citizen won't help you get your passport any faster, you know.
As long as it doesn't delay the process....
182. I get the impression there's a lot of "don't ask don't tell" in the mix as well.
I would say that Warren Court rulings on the constitutionality of various parts of the statutes on this -- see eg -- are a big part of the mix.
I am most definitely not an immigration lawyer, and this isn't legal advice, but I think the link in 182 makes it pretty clear -- the State Department assumes that if you, as a US citizen, go through a routine naturalization process in another country you do so without the intent to renounce your US nationality, and therefore do not renounce it, and therefore keep it. Thus under current guidance you are safe unless you take affirmative steps to do something weird and actively renounce US nationality. The relevant statute and regs could easily be interpreted more strictly, however, and presumably the State Department has set things up this way so that (a) a new President/change of international circumstance could also change this policy (b) the above standard is an evidentiary presumption, which gives the State Department sufficient room to remove US citizenship in paricular circumstances from someone they truly didn't like or thought had fully gone over to another, probably enemy, country. But the only serious fear I'd have is that somehow the State Deparment would change its practices in the future, though it would be horribly unfair if they applied a new strict standard to people who got naturalized in other countries under the current regime. I'd say, based on reading the guidance above, that an American who goes through an ordinary UK naturalization after marrying a UK citizen and moving to the UK is totally fine.
179- The screen is high enough that they don't actually obscure your field of vision any more than, say, a sun visor. They're roughly as distracting as a GPS (probably less so) for doing driving directions. Reading email while driving, though, is a bad idea.
Also, the Wikipedia page that Carp links to says that under current State Department policy it is "virtually impossible" to lose US citizenship without voluntarily and affirmatively renouncing it, thus making dual citizenship very common. Who needs to pay for lawyers when you can rely in quotes from unknown experts on Wikipedia.
I get the impression there's a lot of "don't ask don't tell" in the mix as well.
This is also my impression. And that there's some preferred way of managing what passport you use when in going in and out of the U.S., though I don't begin to know what that is.
182 is basically correct. It's swearing an oath of loyalty that gets you in trouble. I'm dual UK/US by birth so no worries on that front. I could plausibly get Zambian citizenship, I think, but I'm pretty sure that would lose me the US one. I haven't explored the possibility in detail because while being Zambian is teh aweseom, I kind of like living in the US.
Mailed in and received refunds in February. Taxes owed are about 70% less than the previous year, but as a percentage of income, basically the same. The Philadelphia wage tax and New Jersey state income tax interact weirdly, so that some years we don't pay any New Jersey income tax and other years we pay quite a lot.
Peeve of the day: Needed to complete a form for my preteen son. He has no assets and no income, except that a portion of my wife's social security disability counts as income for him. So another form with lots of zeros in it. He didn't have to pay anything.
I don't know where the "oath of loyalty" thing comes from but the regulatory guidance in 182 is quite clear that it's wrong; you can take an oath of loyalty to another country as part of an ordinary naturalization process and the State Department will still presume that you intend to remain a US national, and thus you will remain one.
This is also my impression. And that there's some preferred way of managing what passport you use when in going in and out of the U.S., though I don't begin to know what that is.
Always use the US one. They're very definite on that.
I'm actually thinking Parenthetical (and ajay) is right (hooray!), because there's some additional language on the website which wasn't there before. Previously, those affirmative acts were indicia of intent to relinquish. Now it says that absent things like serving in a hostile military or as a government official, you need other indicia of intent.
Can you accept a knighthood? Or is that right out?
197 -- it's even stronger than that; according to the guidance in 182, unless you serve in a hostile military (French Foreign Legion=ok) or as a policy level government official in another country, if the issue of being naturalized, taking a routine oath of allegiance, or serving in a foreign government comes up, the State Department will just ask "did you do this intending to renounce your US citizenship" and, if you say "no," you get to keep your US citizenship.
I don't think knighthood is a problem; plenty of US people have been knighted.
There's that amendment, but it hasn't really been ratified.
And that there's some preferred way of managing what passport you use when in going in and out of the U.S., though I don't begin to know what that is.
I read up on this issue when I was considering getting Irish citizenship. The strong advice I found was not to carry both passports at once when traveling unless there is some very good reason.
The theory was that if customs people found a second passport they would automatically suspect you of being involved in some sort of shady activity.
I don't know whether or not that's true.
66 and similar get it right, which I wish I had realized earlier in life . Halford's 77 (If you ask them for a reasonable plan, there's not a huge amount of money at stake, and you just want to own up to and fix an error or set up a payment plan, they're very understanding and helpful and will work with you) is my experience as well for both state and IRS. I think I posted about this before, but several years ago my somewhat last-minute e-file failed since one of my dependents had apparently already been claimed. So filed an extension and promptly forgot about it for a year and a half until the IRS gently reminded me that I had not filed taxes for the year in question. I blew that off* with a very a cursory reading since I had filed an extension for *that* year and assumed there was some confusion on their part. A second, more insistent, letter finally got my attention and I sheepishly sent in my complete for the last 18 months forms to both the US and PA.
Anyway, various experiences of mine (and more experiences of a lawyer/serial tax scofflaw in the family) support the fact that if you are not actively fighting them they are relatively forgiving.
*Part of why I was convinced the IRS was wrong was that I recalled that I had posted a triumphal comment on here about them being done "early" ( the day before instead of the day of), and here it is with TurboTax commentary.
Taxes filed! A day early! In general, if you're later than me, you know you're late.
Actually they've been pretty much done for a week while I cogitated on whether I or TurboTax was right on one point. I decided I was.
(The point was a thousand or so dollar swing concerning 529 withdrawal.)
Not a lawyer, and it's been a while since I was completely up on immigration stuff like this, but basically, merely naturalizing somewhere else, even if it requires a loyalty oath, isn't sufficient to renounce your U.S. citizenship. The U.S. will just continue to regard you as an American citizen, however, for all relevant purposes -- so being a dual national doesn't mean squat for taxes, and when you're entering or leaving the U.S., you have to do so as a U.S. citizen (that passport, mostly.) Unless you take all the steps to renounce your citizenship formally, foreign citizenship is about as meaningful as sports team loyalty as far as the U.S. government is concerned. Isn't that a cute little flag with cute little colors?
The Calabat is technically a Canadian citizen, so I should probably get back up to speed on this before we visit relatives up North this summer.
199: It seems my information is badly outdated. Maybe I can go for the Zambia thing after all.
203: I am counting on some understanding, since I never filed 2010 or 2011 taxes (less than $1000 either way, so not that big a deal). Really need to get those in though. Just depression and procrastination to blame.
When I had to work with the IRS about a fairly large (~$25K) penalty they wanted from an organization I worked with, they were really pretty chill about it, esp. once I got a serious tax attorney involved. It was pro bono, thanks to my church connections, but even if it hadn't been, it was about $5,000 worth of lawyering vs. over $20K of penalty that got waived. Hooray for lawyers!
I still use the evil TT in part because all 5 of us end up using it (4 separate fed returns) so that helps amortize the cost if you do it with the SW on your PC rather than the service. (And I think I get it for ~$60.)
I was amused at the varying unanticipated (by them) tax fortunes of the kids. One had unexpected EITC. "Yay, let's go shopping*!" Second one has all 1099-MISCs but had not bothered to pay quarterly for any of it, so yeah, owed a good chunk*. Youngest still claimed as a dependent which led to a good-matured dig at me for stealing his credits followed by a short sarcastic discussion of actual support provided.
*Actually, she's extremely frugal.
206.1: Way, way back in the day I blew off PA taxes two years in a row (was here on a one-year assignment), but it was quite immaterial since my workplace deducted state tax and I had essentially no other material income so they got all but a few bucks of what I owed. They "busted" me several years later when I moved back to PA, but IIRC I blew that off too and nothing material ever came of it. (I just don't recall going back and figuring them out.)
Doing local taxes have improved hugely since my employer began deducting them a couple of years back. Before that it was a pain, and I recall needing to go through gyrations in TurboTax to get them recognized as other taxes.
I read up on this issue when I was considering getting Irish citizenship. The strong advice I found was not to carry both passports at once when traveling unless there is some very good reason.
The theory was that if customs people found a second passport they would automatically suspect you of being involved in some sort of shady activity.
I don't know whether or not that's true.
It's only true of Irish people.
I filed mine a couple of weeks ago, with a "pay date" of the 10th. I usually set things up so I owe a little rather than getting a refund. This year, since both kids stopped being dependents and I'm a lazy sob who forgot to update my withholding, I owed a bunch (but not enough to attract a penalty).
Although, judging from (or piling onto) all the TT hate, it may have done the penalty calculation and added it and not told me (it always used to taunt you about it even if you didn't owe one but underwithheld). For a thin veneer over a simple spreadsheet it has a lot of cheek. I used to do it in Excel but the tax code is just too much for me to reimplement every year now.
TT does seem make you revisit fewer questions than last year if you want to change something (anecdotally anyway).
One thing that would improve my tax experience would be if MA stopped being fake-progressive (i.e., just voting that way but not walking the walk) and just took a percentage of your Federal taxes, as a bunch of states do. Next best thing to no state income tax, which is even simpler. Laziness > all. (Shouting out to all those other blue state residents who have them, there is a movement in my town for a municipal income tax. It'll never pass town meeting though.)
I'm impressed or appalled, not sure which, at how many AMT payers there are here. It was originally supposed to be the "millionaire's tax" as a response to the fact that all those 1950's 90% top rates progressives get wet dreams over got loopholed by tax accountants so that hardly anyone ever actually paid them. Now it's just a trap for the upper-middle class.
plenty of US people have been knighted.
Only honorifically. If Parenthetical gets a DBE in the New Years Honours before she takes out British (or other commonwealth) citizenship, she can't go around calling herself Dame Parenthetical. What the position is if she subsequently does become a UK citizen, I'm not quite sure. If you are planning to be naturalised, the obvious thing would be to ask the functionary who writes to you offering the gong if Her Maj would graciously hold her fire until her other functionaries in the Home Office have done their bit.
Presidential to preserve a veneer of deniability:
An hour after I filed yesterday, I discovered that I had, completely unintentionally, left $5300 off of my 2013 earnings*. I do my taxes and my accounting honestly, and as a liberal/sucker, I believe in paying taxes, but I'm not going to go through whatever hassle would be involved in order to send another $1300 (or whatever) to the IRS. I'll tell myself that I'm sticking it to the deficit scolds.
*going back to double-check, I also found a couple of missed expenses, totaling $300 or so; my accounting practices could evidently stand to be tightened up a bit
210: and people who can't use the italics tags properly.
*by whatever-it-is' law, this post should contain some formatting error.
If the $5300 was reported anywhere, they'll probably get you in the end anyway.
We had to pay quite a bit this year, for the second year in a row. I think we've finally figured out how much extra to withhold so that it's not an issue again, but ugh. We didn't exactly have an extra $6k sitting around.
211: I owed a bunch (but not enough to attract a penalty).
Me too. I almost always do (and had one less dependent this year). I've even gotten into penalty territory once or twice, but even thos have not been at all onerous.
I like my tax authorities like my women: Flexible, forgiving and not prone to quibble over a few inches dollars.
Not carrying two passports is good advice. It looks odd, and immigration officials don't like odd.
Halford (199) what is a "policy level official"? I suspect this provision means that someone I know has actually forfeited their US citizenshp without even being aware of the fact. (This wouldn't constitute a tragedy. They have never filed a tax return in their life, nor held a US passport for 25 years to my certain knowledge. On the rare occasions they go to the US they use the same EU passport they travel everywhere else on.)
It's not defined in the guidance linked in 182 -- my guess is that it's meant to apply only to senior members of foreign governments. Also serving as a policy level officials only takes you out of the presumption that you don't intend to renounce your US citizenship by serving in a foreign government; it's not a definitive renunciation. I'd guess that if even the "policy level" person presented minimal evidence showing that they didn't want to renounce citizenship, and weren't serving in the government of, say, Iran and are otherwise respectable, they'd be fine. But that's all based on just quickly reading two links in this thread.
People up above who used free online things and had trouble, was it freetaxu/s/a? I've used them twice now without any rejection, and been very happy.
I can't recall if I complained here: 2 years ago (so tax year 2011) we used an accountant, and it was a complete waste of time and money: he didn't save me a dime, he didn't save me any time, and it cost $600 bucks. I'm still pretty resentful about that.
Also, some of you may recall that the year I went off food stamps and EITC, our effective marginal tax rate was like 80% or something. Last year was very similar to this year, income-wise, but for some reason our marginal rate (Fed-only) was 41%; our adjusted gross income went up 4650, and our liability went up 1927. I don't really understand what happened, except that most of it seems to have come from self employment tax.
215: (almost) none of my clients seem to report paying me (I average 1 or 2 1099s/year), so I'm not sure it's traceable short of auditing my business checking account. And, again, it was an honest error, so I have no fear of punishment beyond having to pay (plus interest, I guess), which would hardly be the end of the world.
This is a rare year in which I won't need to borrow in order to pay taxes (low 5 figures); as a bonus, AB will be able to pay estimated taxes for the 1st quarter of 2014 as well, meaning that we might finally avoid taking this ridiculous cash hit next April.
220: The self-employment tax rate went from 13.3% for 2011 & 2012 back to 15.3% for 2013 -- that's the expiration of the Obama's short-term payroll tax cut -- so it's weird that your effective tax rate would have gone down because of that.
I'm pretty sure that the website is worded differently than it used to be as well; I certainly had exactly Ginger Yellow and togolosh's view when I first started becoming a permanent resident in the UK. The laws also changed in the 80s; that could be from whence togolosh's impressions come from.
Only honorifically. If Parenthetical gets a DBE in the New Years Honours before she takes out British (or other commonwealth) citizenship, she can't go around calling herself Dame Parenthetical.
Oh, boo. I always wanted to be a Dame! I'll have to avoid doing anything impressive for at least another 6 months. (When technically I'd be eligible. In practice I'll probably wait a bit because it turns out getting citizenship is just a matter of paying more money to the government and finding a member of the 'professions' to sponsor you. And not being bad. Basically.)
And now it turns out TurboTax actually fucked something up... first time that's ever happened (to me). I just got this email from the state.
Your 2013 State Tax Return e-filing has been rejected. Error:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
F740-0002 - The combined amount listed on Form 740, line 5 must equal the federal AGI from line 37 of Form 1040, line 21 of Form 1040A or line 4 of Form 740-EZ unless filing status 4-Married Filing Separate returns is checked.
Fuck. What a headache. All I did was answer the questions that TurboTax asked me! Send this email to them, not to me!
223: Oh no, it went up, not down. What I was saying is that my income went up 10%, but my taxes went up 20% (not exactly, but close enough). The payroll tax thing does explain some of it.
meaning that we might finally avoid taking this ridiculous cash hit next April.
Fucking Aprils. Always with the ridiculous cash hit.
My accountant said we were his most complex clients this year. Schedules A through E inclusive. For 2014, Mrs. K-sky and I became a corporation -- neither of us has any W-2 income any more -- so watch out world.
I left my withholding too low, so I got a surprise this year. It was manageable due to savings, but not my favorite development.
This year should be better; more 401(k) deductions and a salary reduction due to a better (less commutastic) assignment, should improve the taxes I file next April. Though if the universe wants to pour money on me, I promise not to complain (too much) come tax time.
227: Cruelest month, after all.
228: It's a wild world. Not in the way the man meant.
For 2014, Mrs. K-sky and I became a corporation -- neither of us has any W-2 income any more -- so watch out world.
Thank goodness Mrs. K-sky gave birth in 2013 lest we have to consider what kind of freaky parthenogenetic birthing shenanigans the new singular corporate person-y'all got up to.
Corporations are self-reproducing people, my friend.
So clearly personhood begins at incorporation. We just need to figure out which moment in human reproduction is analogous to "incorporation" and we then will have an unequivocal answer to the abortion debate.
#thinklikeJohnRoberts
224.3: Could you be a broad or a dollface instead?
Mine are sort of done, except that I suspect 2012 is still all sorts of wrong. I moved more than I could handle 2012-2013 and, while I think I now have all the papers, they aren't sorted.
Is there a way to find out how much money one sent the treasury, CA franchise board, etc., before finishing the forms?
Could you be a broad or a dollface instead?
Broads almost became extinct in Britain in the 1950s, due to urban redevelopment which drastically reduced their natural habitats of dives, joints and automats. The species has since recovered and a healthy population is preserved in the Westminster Broad Sanctuary, which also maintains breeding populations of mooks, goombahs, wiseguys and dolls. http://www.gardenvisit.com/book/london_and_its_environs_1927/3_westminster/broad_sanctuary
I'm kind of surprised one of the show ideas Alan Partridge came up with in a desperate attempt to stay on television wasn't a regional detective series called Norfolk Broads.
I use free fillable forms online.
Yeah, me too.
Me three. I would like to bitch now about how all the other tax software sucks. My income this year was all fellowship/scholarship income, which free tur/bo tax can't deal with, EVEN THOUGH it is considered straight up basic income by the IRS* and there is a freakin' scholarship drop down menu choice on the free fillable forms. Next, H/R Block had some bug in which it claimed I contributed $0 to my Roth IRA, but had $xxxx in excess contributions, when in reality it was the opposite. It then tried to charge me some ridiculous penalty fee on my supposed excess contributions on $0, and wouldn't let me undo it. Doing my taxes took about 2 hours, about 1.5 of those hours spent attempting to use the "helpful" software. Doing my taxes the old fashioned way with a manual took about half an hour.
*This fact found out after 3 seconds of googling.
9,13: I've used it free fillable forms for a several years now, and I've yet to have my return accepted the first time. This was my best year yet -- only rejected once, and I was able to figure out right away what the problem was.
I had both federal and state accepted the first time this year. *fist pump*
One year I did it when my taxes were more complex (husband was earning annoying amounts of $$ as a "personal contractor") and the form was rejected, but I didn't notice until May. After a panic attack, I discovered I'd made a major mistake and instead of owing 1500 dollars I would get a refund about about $10. Then, a few months after resubmitting, I got a check for $600 from the IRS, since I'd qualified for the EIC.
Wait, so is this finally the thread for sharing incomes, tax bills, and SAT scores?
Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 04-15-14 1:15 PM
horizontal rule
31
And penis length.
I my income is a perfect 1600, my tax bills are in the mid 6 figures, and my SAT scores were 9", baby.
Did I get that right?
170,239: Both TT and Taxcut (now H&R Block) tend to put a lot more effort into stuff that affects lots of people. The federal form clearly gets a lot more love from them than the state forms do, and it was several years into the dot com boom before they really supported incentive stock options properly. So I'm not surprised that there's stuff off in the margins that they don't handle right, although usually I've been able to make Taxcut/H&R Block get the right answer with manual overrides.
I fixed the state return issue in 225, and refiled. It turns out it was a clear glitch in the TT questionnaire... answering the questions asked led to something on the federal form being imported incorrectly into the state form. I suppose that's probably not all that uncommon, but it's the first time it's ever happened to me.
And fuck... I just found a dusty pile of paper on a corner of my desk containing half the reciepts for charitable donations I made last year. I thought the total had seemed mysteriously low. Ugh. I guess I'll need to file amended returns.
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