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C.H.O.M.E posted:Turbotax is pretty good until you have family in Mexico or a trust to own a home or anything more complicated than a normal job. TurboTax certainly doesn't cover all cases, but it really does cover most people and can guide you through most situations if you can read simple forms and instructions. I've filed W2s, many types of 1099s, investment income, income from and disposal of K-1 trusts and partnerships, claimed foreign tax credits, and other situations all no problem. You can review all the actual IRS forms yourself to verify the output of TurboTax. For most people, taxes really are not that complicated, even with more going on than W2/1099 income. It is learned helplessness that keeps lovely companies like H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, et al. in business. All those guys are doing is using an equivalent of TurboTax for you. Yes, if you have some form of an exotic foreign real estate trust that you use to lease out mineral resource extraction rights or whatever, then yeah, get a real tax accountant. But that's a very small portion of the population. Guinness fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Jan 22, 2017 |
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Jan 22, 2017 04:53
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Also, their continuous lobbying against a simplified tax return system.
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Jan 22, 2017 05:03
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I've had a similar argument over accountants for a limited company. What it comes down to is why would you personally invest the time and energy in understanding tax laws, especially if they're constantly changing, when you can pay one guy to understand it for 100+ people as a full time job. Less chance of it going wrong, and really a fairly standard specialisation / division of labour. There's also the whole having someone legally indemnified there to point to if something does go wrong aspect. Fair enough, might not be applicable to the standard American individual's tax return, but personally I'm quite happy to have a guy taking care of my payroll, VAT, dividends, personal tax return etc for £100 odd a month.
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Jan 22, 2017 05:20
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Good with money is having your relative who works for the IRS do your taxes. I'm like 99% sure they use turbo tax for mine because they're pretty simple though.
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Jan 22, 2017 05:27
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brugroffil posted:Good with money is having your relative who works for the IRS do your taxes. As long as you realize that any grey area they are going to error on the side that increases your liability.
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Jan 22, 2017 05:51
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RockyB posted:I've had a similar argument over accountants for a limited company. What it comes down to is why would you personally invest the time and energy in understanding tax laws, especially if they're constantly changing, when you can pay one guy to understand it for 100+ people as a full time job. Less chance of it going wrong, and really a fairly standard specialisation / division of labour. That's for a business, though. Much more complicated ballgame. If you're a pay check type with a retirement account and nothing fancy, turbotax and its ilk will absolutely do the job.
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Jan 22, 2017 06:31
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C.H.O.M.E posted:Turbotax is pretty good until you have family in Mexico or a trust to own a home or anything more complicated than a normal job. I had income in three separate countries one year, and it was able to handle it.
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Jan 22, 2017 08:06
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How do you know it was able to handle it? Maybe you left thousands on the table!
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Jan 22, 2017 19:44
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Volmarias posted:Also, their continuous lobbying against a simplified tax return system. Or any tax return system at all, the IRS keeps basically saying "hey we can totally handle it if people didn't even have to file taxes and we just pulled in the standard deduction plus whatever data we have on them already and then they can optionally file if it's more complex than that" but no that would basically kill turbotax and taxes being a pain in the rear end for most people is basically a republican party platform goal so yeah.
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Jan 22, 2017 21:01
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I've used TurboTax once, and it gave me a huge refund ... too huge. So I visited HR Block for a consultation and they pointed out that I made a mistake on one of the forms. Why didn't i take the money and run? Because I'm not a US citizen yet. One of the requirements to becoming a US citizen is that I paid my taxes, and I feel more at ease having a professional do that for me.
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Jan 22, 2017 21:02
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I hired an accountant to do things like keep abreast of the IRS opinions so I'd file the right FBARs for Canadian accounts. (TFSA treatment changed this year.) The penalty for getting it wrong is $10K per account, so I figured it was a good hedge. She also helped me find a way to claim a credit for a large (to me) donation, and paid for herself right there. Also I'm lazy.
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Jan 22, 2017 21:06
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Fuzzy Mammal posted:How do you know it was able to handle it? Maybe you left thousands on the table! Too single and too poor to be leaving more than hundreds on the table.
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Jan 22, 2017 22:55
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/5pjg7s/65_years_old_700k_in_401k_looking_to_buy_a_house/" posted:Hello guys. Got a mentor who I am returning a favor for. He is a 65 year old recent retiree who has been burning his time camping and enjoying the outdoors. He is a bit of a luddite hence my reaching out for him. Man, I would be having a panic attack if I was in this position. 80% of your 401k tied up in one stock, at age 65? What is wrong with people!
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Jan 22, 2017 23:00
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FateFree posted:Once the summer warms up it obviously will increase in value as it does every year netting about a 10% in stock price for almost 80% of his 401k. drat what incredible arbitrage opportunity am I missing out on? Ice Cream? Louisville slugger? Speedo?
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Jan 23, 2017 00:02
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In 6th grade my math class participated in a fake stock market game. I picked Hersheys since it was almost halloween. Figured it was easy money. It ended up making a profit and we got a free pizza party out of it so GWM I guess.
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Jan 23, 2017 00:12
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potatoducks posted:In 6th grade my math class participated in a fake stock market game. I picked Hersheys since it was almost halloween. Figured it was easy money. It ended up making a profit and we got a free pizza party out of it so GWM I guess. We picked a spread of toy and videogame company stocks and lost all our money real fast 
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Jan 23, 2017 00:17
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Though I remember to demonstrate the teacher bought like, a single actual share of Disney? And she got an actual physical stock certificate for it and brought it in, and said something like "Okay class next time you're at Disney World you can pick out your favorite blade of grass because this class owns about that much worth of Disney now!"
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Jan 23, 2017 00:20
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ate all the Oreos posted:Or any tax return system at all, the IRS keeps basically saying "hey we can totally handle it if people didn't even have to file taxes and we just pulled in the standard deduction plus whatever data we have on them already and then they can optionally file if it's more complex than that" but no that would basically kill turbotax and taxes being a pain in the rear end for most people is basically a republican party platform goal so yeah. Yeah, you can tell this is the case because when Democrats are in power they make lots of progress on tax reform. ...
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Jan 23, 2017 00:33
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potatoducks posted:In 6th grade my math class participated in a fake stock market game. I picked Hersheys since it was almost halloween. Figured it was easy money. It ended up making a profit and we got a free pizza party out of it so GWM I guess. We did this in 9th grade economics, in 2004. My team was bullish on defense contractors and energy companies. We won by almost 12%. 
BigDave fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Jan 23, 2017 |
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Jan 23, 2017 01:38
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I did this in High School and I picked Pan-Am stock because I am apparently a very old man. It was a penny stock by then so I think I took over the company with my investment. Kind of hard to pump and dump when you now probably have a seat on the board of directors.
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Jan 23, 2017 02:32
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Krispy Kareem posted:I did this in High School and I picked Pan-Am stock because I am apparently a very old man. It was a penny stock by then so I think I took over the company with my investment. Kind of hard to pump and dump when you now probably have a seat on the board of directors. This post just justified the $10 I paid for these forums 10 years ago.
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Jan 23, 2017 02:36
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This is why you should look at your credit card statements every once in a while:https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/5pk94w/my_dad_just_figured_out_hes_been_paying_30month/ posted:My Dad just figured out he's been paying $30/month for AOL dial-up internet he hasn't used for at least the last ten years. (self.personalfinance)
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Jan 23, 2017 02:40
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VideoTapir posted:I had income in three separate countries one year, and it was able to handle it. My stuff was pretty simple and I used it until I got married, just one job and some retirement accounts. EIDE Van Hagar fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Jan 23, 2017 |
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Jan 23, 2017 02:43
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We get it, you married a rich girl, stop humblebragging about it.
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Jan 23, 2017 02:52
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Haifisch posted:This is why you should look at your credit card statements every once in a while: How did he manage to keep the same number for 10 years? Harry fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Jan 23, 2017 |
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Jan 23, 2017 02:52
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Harry posted:How did he manage to keep the same number for 10 years? Credit card companies typically let autopay billers know if the number/expiration date changed, because otherwise you'd have some guy who put his electricity on autopay, didn't let the electric company know when they got a new credit card, and then gets an article in the newspaper/local tv news about how his power was turned off in the middle of a winter storm because he hadn't paid in three months.
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Jan 23, 2017 03:14
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Man, whenever I have to replace my cards the whole world has to get updated (except Apple Pay, oddly).
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Jan 23, 2017 03:18
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Subjunctive posted:Man, whenever I have to replace my cards the whole world has to get updated (except Apple Pay, oddly). No poo poo. At work I had roughly 100 items set to autopay for the Amex and I had to call every single one of those fucks last month.
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Jan 23, 2017 03:42
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I have one membership that somehow managed to keep going even after my card expired, they chased me down for six months or so before reaching me, yet the payment was being processed properly. Autopay is weird.
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Jan 23, 2017 03:55
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monster on a stick posted:Speaking of CA, sometimes Bad With Math becomes Bad With Money: Amnesia is going to be bad with money if Californians elect someone like Schwarzenneger again instead of a boring Brownite. As someone with a long memory of California politics, 1.6 billion is a breath of fresh air after the 25 billion dollar budget disaster of 2010. It was very literally the episode of the simpsons where everyone voted for Homer, got pissed and removed him, and then the old guy who'd been there before showed up and told everyone they were screwed (except Brown stuck around to actually fix the mess)
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Jan 23, 2017 03:59
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Pryor on Fire posted:We get it, you married a rich girl, stop humblebragging about it. I am sorry did my bragging seem humble I did not mean for it to be so.
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Jan 23, 2017 04:01
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He wears skivvies that's made of chinchilla. Factory in mexico bought a spring villa.
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Jan 23, 2017 04:14
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I Like Jell-O posted:Yeah, you can tell this is the case because when Democrats are in power they make lots of progress on tax reform. The democrats get lobbyist money thrown at them while the republicans just do it on principle of hating poors and wanting the government to appear as dysfunctional as possible.
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Jan 23, 2017 04:43
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ate all the Oreos posted:The democrats get lobbyist money thrown at them while the republicans just do it on principle of hating poors and wanting the government to appear as dysfunctional as possible. Do it.
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Jan 23, 2017 05:07
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Taxes are really hard and complicated so please don't do them yourself.... please pay me instead rent is expensive
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Jan 23, 2017 05:14
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ate all the Oreos posted:The democrats get lobbyist money thrown at them while the republicans just do it on principle of hating poors and wanting the government to appear as dysfunctional as possible. JC Denton, take this to D&D.
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Jan 23, 2017 05:39
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monster on a stick posted:JC Denton, take this to D&D. What an expensive mistake you turned out to be  edit: speaking of taxes, I can see why Credit Karma's new tax service is completely free at least for now. It's horrible. BWM to spend 3 hours trying to figure out where they're missing credits versus a $35 Deluxe upcharge on TurboTax. Nail Rat fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Jan 23, 2017 |
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Jan 23, 2017 15:13
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I have a question about my car situation I posted about earlier. I'm bad with money either way so it fits here: would rolling negative equity into a car loan be the dumbest thing if it leads to a financial goal in the long run? God it already sounds awful, hear me out: Let's say someone bought a 35,000 dollar car, brand new with gap insurance and all the stuff that made the monthly payments way too high because they are stupid and wanted a new thing after getting a sweet job and having a poo poo year. The new car depreciates immediately to 29,000 (just spitballing the numbers.) They're now 6k upside down. Now they decide the payments are too high for their long term goals. The key here is that it is still affordable, there's just so much money there that could be more responsibly invested. Is it an option to suck up the bad decision and trade while rolling 6k of negative equity into a 10k used car and have a 16k loan on a less-nice car? Would anyone even finance that to someone with good credit? My logic is that you could keep making the same budgeted car payments but this time it would be knocking out the principal of a smaller loan I could pay off several years earlier. I'd be left with an older car, but that's fine. Worst case, I could probably get less than upside down on it in a year and trade it then. I've been running a strong budget for years, then this one bad choice comes along and boom.
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Jan 23, 2017 16:37
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Rolo posted:I have a question about my car situation I posted about earlier. I'm bad with money either way so it fits here: would rolling negative equity into a car loan be the dumbest thing if it leads to a financial goal in the long run? God it already sounds awful, hear me out:
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Jan 23, 2017 16:46
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My personal opinion is that it makes more sense to drive a nice new car that you overpaid for into the ground while taking advantage of the factory warranty fresh tires and brakes etc rather than just take the bath immediately if the payments aren't crushing you, but many Ramsey-ites would definitely advocate that you immediately sell the expensive car at a big loss and roll negative equity into an overall cheaper loan. An important factor to consider is that you're almost guaranteed to be paying a substantially higher interest rate on a loan involving negative equity such that it may actually incur more monthly interest at the beginning of the loan even if the overall debt is lower.
BEHOLD: MY CAPE fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Jan 23, 2017 |
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Jan 23, 2017 16:48
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