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New Leaf posted:Two years is when she would have taken the job at my company, so that's entirely possible. Three years ago she was making peanuts compared to what she's making now, so that may have an effect. Also, my memory is flawed- the house purchase went on last year's taxes, but we purchased the house in 2013. Yeah sounds like your withholdings weren't set up right when she started the new job. If you're withholding too little and she's making more money, it's not surprising at all that you owe. Points are money you pay upfront as part of closing costs to lock in a lower interest rate for the duration of the mortgage. It is deductible the year you paid it as part of mortgage interest. If you don't know what they are, chances are you didn't take any when you took out your mortgage.
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Jan 30, 2015 14:15
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potatoducks posted:Nah, nothing like that. I use it all the time for work related purposes, but usually on nights and weekends. Ah, that makes it sound much less like a scam. The original post made it sound like you had a spare room in your house and wanted to do the bare minimum to make it count as a home office for tax purposes.
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Jan 30, 2015 14:49
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potatoducks posted:Yeah I think you're presuming a level of arrogance here that doesn't actually exist. Don't get too excited. Your situation sounds similar to example 3 in pub 587, so I guess if that's an accurate description of your activities, you should be OK. As long as you aren't using that office for gaming, sex dungeons, reading for enjoyment, that sort of thing when you're not working.
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Jan 30, 2015 15:36
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New Leaf posted:Two years is when she would have taken the job at my company, so that's entirely possible. Three years ago she was making peanuts compared to what she's making now, so that may have an effect. Also, my memory is flawed- the house purchase went on last year's taxes, but we purchased the house in 2013. Oh, I thought your income had basically stayed the same for the whole period. If your wife got a significant raise right when it started happening, then that is almost certainly the problem. It is very common for couples making decent/good money, where they are fairly equal in income to eachother. The reason it happens is because the federal tax brackets stop doubling perfectly for married couples after the 15% bracket. They refer to this as the "marriage penalty". I.E.: code:Droo fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Jan 30, 2015 |
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Jan 30, 2015 15:40
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Droo posted:If I were you, I would dig out your two W2 forms from 2012 (was that the last year you didn't owe?) and compare them to now. If you suddenly owe money AFTER buying a house, then something either changed or something is wrong. I would guess that you or your wife changed withholding exemptions like 3 years ago and just forgot about it, and that would be really obvious by comparing your W2 forms for the last few years. Another option is to take both 1040 forms and compare them. That would let you see which lines changed, rather than just comparing the last line on each form that lists what is due.
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Jan 30, 2015 16:04
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Droo posted:Oh, I thought your income had basically stayed the same for the whole period. If your wife got a significant raise right when it started happening, then that is almost certainly the problem. It is very common for couples making decent/good money, where they are fairly equal in income to eachother. The reason it happens is because the federal tax brackets stop doubling perfectly for married couples after the 15% bracket. They refer to this as the "marriage penalty". I.E.: Yeah I'm going to have to fiddle with something at work so this doesn't happen again. I'm clueless when it comes to this sort of thing, do I just need to talk to HR about updating our forms so we don't get hosed next year? So I just need to have them hold like $40 a check or something? And really, when I say huge raise, it's huge to use. We aren't rich folks, but for our area, we're doing pretty well. We're in suburban NC, and the average household income for our town is $47k according to Wikipedia, and our household income is over $60k. She went from a $10 an hour, 35 hours/week vet tech job to a $30k receptionist position, so it makes a huge difference to us. Peanuts to some of you I'm sure... But that said, having to shell out $1200 is pretty devastating right now..
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Jan 30, 2015 16:20
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New Leaf posted:So I just need to have them hold like $40 a check or something? $1200 is $50 per check, but yeah, that's the basic idea. Of course, you could just put that $50 in the bank instead of having the government hold on to it. You owe the taxes you owe, the details of when you pay them is less relevant.
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Jan 30, 2015 16:55
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smackfu posted:$1200 is $50 per check, but yeah, that's the basic idea. Of course, you could just put that $50 in the bank instead of having the government hold on to it. Too much temptation involved there.. Edit: Okay gently caress the Federal form. I've been claiming "1" for years since nobody can claim me as a dependent. Where the hell does it say you can put 0? I didn't realize you could just 0 out the whole thing and be done with it. New Leaf fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jan 30, 2015 |
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Jan 30, 2015 16:55
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At about 60k total income, something seems odd. How much did you have withheld total for 2014? Even with no deductions at all (401k, HSA, etc) your federal income tax owed on $60,000 should only be $5,047.50. It seems weird that they could have underwithheld $1200 on that.
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Jan 30, 2015 18:15
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My return didn't change much since last year, but Turbotax is giving me $1000 less in sales tax deduction. Did those rules change or something? Edit: Grah, never mind, it's because I bought a car last year. slap me silly fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Jan 30, 2015 |
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Jan 30, 2015 20:41
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potatoducks posted:Yeah I think you're presuming a level of arrogance here that doesn't actually exist. Don't get too excited. Bottom line - if you're in AMT all of those costs are disallowed anyways, so you might be doing a whole lot of work for nothing.
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Jan 30, 2015 21:31
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I started a new job where I commute via public transit. My employer isn't able to provide me with a pretax transit pass because of "reasons". If I save ticket stubs and receipts is that something I can deduct? Are parking costs for parking at the transit stops deductible?
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Jan 30, 2015 22:58
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Massasoit posted:I started a new job where I commute via public transit. My employer isn't able to provide me with a pretax transit pass because of "reasons". If I save ticket stubs and receipts is that something I can deduct? Are parking costs for parking at the transit stops deductible? No. Your lazy employer needs to get off their rear end and offer the plan.
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Jan 31, 2015 00:07
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Droo posted:At about 60k total income, something seems odd. How much did you have withheld total for 2014? Assuming you are asking for "Federal income tax withheld" box on both our W-2's added together, $4070.95
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Jan 31, 2015 00:16
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I switched jobs midway through this year and I haven't gotten my old employer's W2 yet even though they mailed them out a week ago. I've tried calling their payroll office multiple times and I always get their voicemail and no one returns my messages. I'd go in person but I've since moved states. I'm starting to worry my W2 didn't get forwarded from my old address and now some random person has my important documents. Where do I go from here besides calling payroll every day till they answer their drat phone?
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Jan 31, 2015 00:25
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Bisty Q. posted:No. Your lazy employer needs to get off their rear end and offer the plan. They said the cost of implementing this for one employee was too much to do. Meanwhile I'm out $3600/year for transit. I work in a different location than the rest of the company and am the only one from a staff of 70 that uses public transit. I asked if they could just deduct the amount and give it to me on a debt card or something but they said it would be to expensive to set up and they couldn't just do it for be because it would "look suspicious".
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Jan 31, 2015 00:27
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So, if the deadline for an employer to get W-2s in the mail is January 31st and they don't do it they are subject to penalties. How does the IRS know that an employer is late? Does an employee have to snitch? And if that employee was the only one to ask a few times at the end of January when the W-2s might be coming, it'll be pretty obvious who did it? My boss asked me today (January 30th) if I'd mind swinging by Office Depot on my lunch break for her to pick up some W-2 forms. Technically they are not late yet, but I mean.... I'm not real confident it will be done in time, legally. This happens every drat year, my bosses are the most last-minute people in the world. Every year for their own taxes they file an extension and then wait until the night of October 14th to start theirs. I don't particularly care about their tax stress, but I do get jealous of my friends posting about their tax returns on Facebook and I haven't gotten step 1 yet. I just wish they'd have something bite them in the butt just once, so that on January first they start thinking about things, instead of looking up on January 30th, April 14th, October 14th, etc and going "Oh, heavens! I've just been so busy! Oh me, oh my!" Sorry kind of E/N, just irritated today.
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Jan 31, 2015 00:44
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Just so you don't think I'm crazy - I pulled up the W4 form for 2015: The worksheet at the top says that if you're single, can't be claimed as a dependent by someone else, have one job, and take the Standard Deduction - 2 allowances is indeed the correct number to claim on your W4 EDIT: Here's a great withholding calculator that allows you to specify both state and federal allowances to see what your paycheck would be if you changed them: http://www.paycheckcity.com/cointuitonlinepayroll/netpaycalculator.asp And a good article about maximizing your takehome pay by adjusting your allowances: http://theflounce.com/tax-withholding-get-paycheck/ EugeneJ fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Jan 31, 2015 |
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Jan 31, 2015 01:26
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devilmonk posted:My wife got a fellowship for phd research, half of which was a paid to her last year and the other half this year. It is my understanding that the fellowship money is taxable if it was spent for things such as room/board or travel, and the the only non-taxable bits are what was spent on tuition or books, etc. Any advice on this?
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Jan 31, 2015 01:38
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New Leaf posted:Assuming you are asking for "Federal income tax withheld" box on both our W-2's added together, $4070.95 I think you're running into the problem of having tax withheld at the lower Married rate, while both you and your wife make similar amounts of money. It was discussed previously how the Married rate is based on the 1950s paradigm of a married couple where there was only one breadwinner for the family. Thus, if both you and your wife are withholding at the Married rate, they're withholding on the assumption that you each get the full $12k MFJ standard deduction ($24k assumed deduction between the 2 of you from your W-4s), when in fact you're sharing it. So there's about $12k of income not having taxes withheld on, which is why you owe money. You can always change it on your W-4 form to withhold at the Single rate even though you are married.
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Jan 31, 2015 05:39
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drat Bananas posted:So, if the deadline for an employer to get W-2s in the mail is January 31st and they don't do it they are subject to penalties. How does the IRS know that an employer is late? Does an employee have to snitch? And if that employee was the only one to ask a few times at the end of January when the W-2s might be coming, it'll be pretty obvious who did it? My boss asked me today (January 30th) if I'd mind swinging by Office Depot on my lunch break for her to pick up some W-2 forms. Technically they are not late yet, but I mean.... I'm not real confident it will be done in time, legally. Just FYI since the 31st is a Saturday the deadline is technically Monday the 2nd  devilmonk posted:Any advice on this? Money is fungible, it is literally almost impossible in most cases to say where a specific dollar spent came from. Assume all of the fellowship is taxable to start with and subtract out the qualifying expenditures, from whatever source. The net result at the end is the taxable amount. Aquatic Giraffe posted:I switched jobs midway through this year and I haven't gotten my old employer's W2 yet even though they mailed them out a week ago. I've tried calling their payroll office multiple times and I always get their voicemail and no one returns my messages. I'd go in person but I've since moved states. I'm starting to worry my W2 didn't get forwarded from my old address and now some random person has my important documents. Most W-2 envelopes have "address service requested" printed on them, meaning they don't usually get forwarded and instead get returned to the sender. Not much to do other than continue to try and get ahold of them, unfortunately.
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Jan 31, 2015 06:36
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furushotakeru posted:Most W-2 envelopes have "address service requested" printed on them, meaning they don't usually get forwarded and instead get returned to the sender. Not much to do other than continue to try and get ahold of them, unfortunately. I guess I'll keep calling them. This is super annoying. I have everything I need to do my taxes except this one W2. Is there any law preventing me from having someone who still works there walk down to payroll and be like "hey send this W2 to this address" on my behalf? Because that's looking like my next step.
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Jan 31, 2015 07:28
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:I guess I'll keep calling them. This is super annoying. I have everything I need to do my taxes except this one W2.
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Jan 31, 2015 07:41
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SiGmA_X posted:A law from asking someone to do something? Really? Just do it... #Murika! I'm assuming there are some privacy laws preventing people from changing the address on important tax documents that aren't theirs, but you never know.
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Jan 31, 2015 14:48
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:I'm assuming there are some privacy laws preventing people from changing the address on important tax documents that aren't theirs, but you never know. Not a law against someone walking over to payroll and handing them a phone so you can talk to them, though.
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Jan 31, 2015 16:07
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SiGmA_X posted:A law from asking someone to do something? Really? Just do it... #Murika! Here in Oregon, it's employment law that the employer needs to provide a paystub showing total year-to-date info....such as gross pay and withholdings. We tend to also focus on the employees being handed this information and them just tossing it out. Save your paystubs, people.
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Jan 31, 2015 18:23
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AbbiTheDog posted:Here in Oregon, it's employment law that the employer needs to provide a paystub showing total year-to-date info....such as gross pay and withholdings. We tend to also focus on the employees being handed this information and them just tossing it out. I do have a whole file of old paystubs but I think they converted to online only before the end of the year last year and I can't access it since my employee account was nuked when I stopped being an employee. I can take a look though. furushotakeru posted:Not a law against someone walking over to payroll and handing them a phone so you can talk to them, though. True. I might do that this week if they continue to not answer their phone or return messages.
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Jan 31, 2015 20:16
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potatoducks posted:Yeah I think you're presuming a level of arrogance here that doesn't actually exist. Don't get too excited. I'm inclined to agree with the other fellow. Doctors can be a bit....difficult.....to deal with, especially in fields where they think their medical smarts translates to they know everything about every topic they lay their hands on. We refer to M.D. as "Me, Doctor."
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Jan 31, 2015 22:00
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AbbiTheDog posted:Bottom line - if you're in AMT all of those costs are disallowed anyways, so you might be doing a whole lot of work for nothing. I'm just going to combine the above since they quote the same post. I didn't hit AMT last year, but yeah that's definitely something to take into consideration. I agree, physicians as a whole are useless blowhards paid good money to participate in the circlejerk that is modern medicine. They often make poor financial decisions too. I'm just here for some tax facts though, and it seems like the general consensus is to pay for some professional guidance. Definitely not too arrogant to do that. On a different note, if I have both a 1099 and a W2, can I not bother with estimated tax payments if I just withhold more on my W4? Also, as en employee, can you in effect give yourself an interest-free loan by not withholding any taxes in the beginning of the year and sending your entire paycheck to the government at the end of the year? Similarly, if you're self-employed, do your estimated taxes have to be in equal installments? Or can you just pay everything in the fourth quarter without incurring any penalties?
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Jan 31, 2015 22:50
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Yes, you can just withhold more on your W4. No to the others- you will owe a penalty unless you pay tax on the money as it is earned, either with each paycheck or by the quarterly estimated tax deadlines. http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc306.html slap me silly fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Jan 31, 2015 |
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Jan 31, 2015 22:57
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What proof does a business have to provide to the IRS regarding sending of W2's? One of my gf's old employers is requiring she picks it up in person like the rest of the employees do...
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Feb 1, 2015 08:40
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Okay, so I'm going through pub 560 to try and figure out what my husband and I can contribute to our solo 401ks. We got married last year so this is my first time doing it with two people. We run a publishing company together, and the only differences between the two of us is: I paid $9,219 in tax already for last year's estimated SE taxes, and I already contributed my $17,500 max to my trad IRA through my traditional job. So far, so good. I'm trying to figure out how to max our contributions. From what I figured, he can contribute $17,500 and we can both contribute 20% of net profits as the "employer". But it doesn't seem to come out that way and I wonder what I'm doing wrong. Our estimated net profit right now is 146710 after other deductions. 20% of profits should be .2*(146,710) = 29,342 If I put all of the profit over on his column, it works out fine. He gets an additional 29,342 possible contribution. But if I split it up half and half (or any other way, really, that has numbers over on my side), we end up with a contribution limit of 27,498 total between us. Is that due to the SE tax payments I already made? Should I just use the smaller number as the contribution limit then?
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Feb 1, 2015 23:33
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I know for SEP IRA's you had to deduct 1/2 of self employment tax from the earnings first, and then take the percentage. It gets a little wonky since your income is over the self employed max, but the difference looks about right to me. I.E.: $146,710 - ($117,000 * 6.2%) - ($146,710 * 1.45%) = $146,710 - $7,254 - $2,127 = $137,329 $137,329 * 20% = $27,466 It's not the exact same number you are coming up with, but only $32 off of what you said.
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Feb 2, 2015 21:29
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Last year I moved a rent house in my personal name into an LLC I own with my wife. Do I just copy over the existing depreciation to my LLC and remove everything from my personal taxes or is there anything else? Do I need to show a sale from myself to my LLC?
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Feb 2, 2015 23:15
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toben posted:Last year I moved a rent house in my personal name into an LLC I own with my wife. Which state do you live in?
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Feb 2, 2015 23:31
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Hi all, ACA related question here. My apologies if it's been covered already. My wife and I were legally wed in November 2014. We have been living together since 2007. I am MFS (using H&R Block's site) since she has no income. If I'm reading this right I cannot claim her as a dependent but I still owe a penalty for her not having health care last year? I'm not trying to weasel out of anything but I'm hesitant to enter the return as I have it because I feel like I'm missing something. I added her to my employer's coverage shortly after we were wed (3-4 weeks later, during open enrollment). If she is not legally a dependent how am I responsible for her part in ACA? Especially before we were married? That's like having to pay a penalty because one of your roommates is uninsured as far as I can tell. Can I still file single or is that illegal?
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Feb 3, 2015 01:42
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AbbiTheDog posted:Which state do you live in? I live in OK.
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Feb 3, 2015 01:54
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Panty Saluter posted:Hi all, ACA related question here. My apologies if it's been covered already. Not addressing anything else, but yes, it's illegal to file as single if you're married as of 12/31 on the tax year.
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Feb 3, 2015 01:58
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So, by the nature of being a bartender, my tax return has pretty much disappeared. 2 years ago, I only got back $50. Last year, I had to pay $500. I roughly did my taxes real fast on TaxACT and it says I owe $1,500. That seems crazy high to me. I claimed $30k for my income this past year. I think last year I claimed around $18k (we had to claim what we actually made this past year at my work instead of undercutting it). There was only a couple of pay checks I got that had any money on it (about $5-$6). Almost all of my paychecks are Zero. I'm not a dependent and I don't have any dependents. I signed up for Obamacare before the deadline in December. I'm not a student....does this sound right? There's no way I can pay $1,500 within a couple of months 
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Feb 3, 2015 02:09
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Ugh, that sucks. You were in the 15% bracket both years, meaning your total tax bill should be about $1800 higher this year compared to last year (15% of the difference of $12000). Did your work withhold any tax? IRS will let you pay it off monthly instead of all at once, http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Payment-Plans-Installment-Agreements. It costs a little more.
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Feb 3, 2015 02:22
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