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PRADA SLUT posted:How many exemptions should my spouse and I claim on our W4's, to ensure we don't owe anything at the end of the year? “Married” is a relic of the W-4 system being old, because that withholding rate assumes you’re the only spouse working. You want to do single/married but withhold at single rate on the W-4 to avoid these issues.
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Feb 1, 2018 02:39
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The withholding rates are being totally revamped by the way, I'm sure the IRS will release detailed and expert guidance on how to much to withhold in an efficient and timely manner.
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Feb 1, 2018 02:59
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UnfurledSails posted:It's a branch in the US (he apparently opened it while he visited, and used my current address which is why I got the 1099-INT and not him). He should have provided the bank with a W-8BEN, did he give them a W-9? Anyway, interest on a savings account used for personal purposes is not going to be ECI. Generally, this kind of interest is not subject to withholding, so likely no tax is due. So they account for it right going forward, I'd give the bank a W-8BEN as they seem to think he is a US citizen/resident.
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Feb 1, 2018 03:44
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MadDogMike posted:“Married” is a relic of the W-4 system being old, because that withholding rate assumes you’re the only spouse working. You want to do single/married but withhold at single rate on the W-4 to avoid these issues. So both of us claiming single/1 or married/0 or married(withhold single)/1?
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Feb 1, 2018 06:34
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I'm starting a new position at the end of February, and I'm MFS. Should I claim a 1? The IRS calculator is offline due to new tax bill 
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Feb 1, 2018 15:18
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The Slack Lagoon posted:I'm starting a new position at the end of February, and I'm MFS. Should I claim a 1 on W-4? The IRS calculator is offline due to new tax bill
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Feb 1, 2018 15:19
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This won’t be relevant until next year since I’m getting it this month, but how is tax on unclaimed property handled? Should I expect the relevant state agency to withhold some for me or will I need to plan on setting some aside to pay next year?
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Feb 1, 2018 18:16
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kefkafloyd posted:I personally wouldn't file a return before January 31st, because that's the deadline for a lot of firms to send out informational forms to you. I know some people need that sweet sweet refund money but filing in mid-to-late February is the better call. On the other hand I just checked my bank account a few minutes ago and saw that my federal refund was deposited on 1/30, which is nice to have going for me.
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Feb 1, 2018 21:56
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Thoguh posted:On the other hand I just checked my bank account a few minutes ago and saw that my federal refund was deposited on 1/30, which is nice to have going for me. stupid PATH act got me waiting another month.
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Feb 1, 2018 23:19
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My friend was telling me that her sister got a bunch of company stock from her job, and after she worked there for a while and it became vested she sold some. She sold some this last year and was doing her taxes on turbotax (I'd be surprised if she entered things correctly) and started crying when her estimated return went way down. It got me to wondering though, how does that work? Do you pay your regular income tax on the price of the stock when it became vested, and pay capital gains on the difference? Do you only pay the income tax portion of that when you've actually sold them, or is it when they become vested?
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Feb 2, 2018 03:23
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If I open a trad IRA, fund it, and close it for the same value I opened it for, all in the same tax year, do I need to report it? Assume I neither take it as income or a deduction. Or, do I need to mark it as both?
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Feb 2, 2018 17:12
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I had $554 worth of foreign tax paid, all of it through Vanguard ETF's held in a taxable account. TurboTax is whining that Box 6d on the 1099-DIV, "Foreign source amount included in dividends" can't be left blank, and has to have a value. It doesn't seem to matter whether I put $554 or $0 in that box. I checked last year's return and it was blank, so it must be a new problem in TurboTax. Should the value be $0 or $554? I can't find any answers online. Edit: or should it be $4327, which is the total amount of dividends I received from the foreign ETF's which tax was paid out of? Which also doesn't change my refund (which stays correct in any of the 3 cases). Droo fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Feb 2, 2018 |
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Feb 2, 2018 17:43
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Droo posted:I had $554 worth of foreign tax paid, all of it through Vanguard ETF's held in a taxable account. TurboTax is whining that Box 6d on the 1099-DIV, "Foreign source amount included in dividends" can't be left blank, and has to have a value. It doesn't seem to matter whether I put $554 or $0 in that box. I checked last year's return and it was blank, so it must be a new problem in TurboTax. Form 1116 uses a formula to work through how much of the credit you can take based on US/foreign income. Check for an election somewhere - if you're not trying to carry the FTC forward, you can elect to skip filing the 1116 and simply slap the FTC on page 2 of the 1040. That might get rid of your issue. If you don't want to worry about finding the election, yes you'd put in $4,327.
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Feb 2, 2018 18:23
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AbbiTheDog posted:Form 1116 uses a formula to work through how much of the credit you can take based on US/foreign income. Thanks for your reply. The more I look at it the more I think it's just a goofy turbotax bug since it is actually doing everything right - it doesn't fill out a form 1116 and it puts the tax credit right on the 1040 like it should. It only complains during the very last error/review stage so someone probably screwed up some code there, which doesn't actually effect the important stuff.
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Feb 2, 2018 18:34
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BAE OF PIGS posted:My friend was telling me that her sister got a bunch of company stock from her job, and after she worked there for a while and it became vested she sold some. She sold some this last year and was doing her taxes on turbotax (I'd be surprised if she entered things correctly) and started crying when her estimated return went way down. It got me to wondering though, how does that work? Do you pay your regular income tax on the price of the stock when it became vested, and pay capital gains on the difference? Do you only pay the income tax portion of that when you've actually sold them, or is it when they become vested? Have her see someone. She needs to know if she got stock options (nonqualified/Incentive), employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) or restricted stock units (RSUs). Everyone tends to lump these ways of getting company stock that vests together as "company gave me stock" but the tax treatment can/will vary.
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Feb 2, 2018 19:06
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What the next step up from TurboTax, etc. self filing? I've reached a level of complexity (stock grants, contracting income, possible AMT issues, etc.) where I think it makes sense to have someone who know's what they're doing help, but I'm not super rich either so "hire an accounting firm" seems outside my price rage. Is there something in between? My understanding is that H&R Block, LibertyTax, etc. is basically the same as TurboTax but with a minimum wage employee doing data entry for you. Is that not right? If not, what's the value they provide. I don't think they're actually accountants are they? At any rate, what's the next step up after outgrowing self-prepare?
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Feb 3, 2018 18:26
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KernelSlanders posted:What the next step up from TurboTax, etc. self filing? I've reached a level of complexity (stock grants, contracting income, possible AMT issues, etc.) where I think it makes sense to have someone who know's what they're doing help, but I'm not super rich either so "hire an accounting firm" seems outside my price rage. Is there something in between? My understanding is that H&R Block, LibertyTax, etc. is basically the same as TurboTax but with a minimum wage employee doing data entry for you. Is that not right? If not, what's the value they provide. I don't think they're actually accountants are they? There's not a lot in-between. Yes, the chain shops will, in all likelihood, screw something up (I'd give it 50/50 odds based on what you listed). Also note that the people that work at those chains tend not to have licenses that allow them to give advice - only licenses to prepare. If you want tax planning/advice, you need to see an LTC/CPA. For cost, yes if you're in AMT and running your own business you're going to need to "pay to play." Sorry, but the amount of work we're required to do and pay attention to is just too much to crank out returns like that for $300. You can try and find the cheapest CPA you can, but remember you get what you pay for in most cases, and tax prep follows that rule. No, you don't need a massive national firm, but you probably don't want Fred who works out of his kitchen at night either. Call around and find a small, local firm - those tend to be a good balance between value/service, plus there's other staff there in case your particular accountant is out/retires/dies/etc. It mostly depends on *who* you work with, not the credentials - I've worked with great LTCs, I've worked with lovely CPAs. If you have an insurance agent/investment broker, check with them for a tax preparer referral.
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Feb 3, 2018 18:36
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For my place of work, I need to get a license every year which is essentially a background check that costs like $300. Can I claim this under "Employment Expenses Related to a W-2" ? lol internet. fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Feb 3, 2018 |
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Feb 3, 2018 20:17
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gently caress. I was doing my state taxes and realized that I entered the wrong number for student loan interest paid. I entered 383 but it should have been 320, so I'll be getting $12 more back than I should be. Is this amount worth amending my return over? Is it a pain in the rear end to amend?
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Feb 3, 2018 20:54
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I don’t know regarding your first question about whether the IRS will notice that you stiffed them $12. Even if they notice, I’d be shocked if they cared or did anything about it, since it would be pretty uneconomical of them to put anybody on a $12 tax evasion case. However, I don’t have a deep understanding of how the IRS works and am not a tax professional. I’ve amended my state and federal tax returns—it is pretty easy. Just follow the instructions on Form 1040X and [Your State’s Individual Tax Return Form #]X. silence_kit fucked around with this message at 13:32 on Feb 4, 2018 |
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Feb 4, 2018 00:27
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My wife was a postdoc from mid-2015 until the middle of last year, when she started a corporate job. We've been filing jointly for the last couple of years with a decent-sized return each year. This year however, our return is a lot smaller. I don't know a ton about the tax code but I think this is because her postdoc stipend wasn't taxed on the federal level (boxes 1-13 are blank on her W-2 from the university), so our combined taxable wages while she was a postdoc were a lot lower than what we were taking home combined, meaning that we were in a lower tax bracket and thus owed fewer taxes overall? And now that her salary is actually taxed, we've been moved up to a different bracket? Does that sound right on a basic level?
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Feb 4, 2018 05:30
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lol internet. posted:For my place of work, I need to get a license every year which is essentially a background check that costs like $300. Can I claim this under "Employment Expenses Related to a W-2" ? You're in luck, the new tax bill removed the ability to deduct unreimbursed employee expenses, so you don't have to worry about it starting this year. For your 2017 taxes, you'd have to itemize and then you'd have to deal with whether or not those expenses exceed 2% of your AGI in order to be deductible.
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Feb 4, 2018 05:55
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C-Euro posted:My wife was a postdoc from mid-2015 until the middle of last year, when she started a corporate job. We've been filing jointly for the last couple of years with a decent-sized return each year. This year however, our return is a lot smaller. I don't know a ton about the tax code but I think this is because her postdoc stipend wasn't taxed on the federal level (boxes 1-13 are blank on her W-2 from the university), so our combined taxable wages while she was a postdoc were a lot lower than what we were taking home combined, meaning that we were in a lower tax bracket and thus owed fewer taxes overall? And now that her salary is actually taxed, we've been moved up to a different bracket? Does that sound right on a basic level? Edit: I wrote a long lecture about how fellowship stipends are income and thus you should pay taxes on them, but it looks like the lecture, now deleted, might not be relevant. I snooped through your post history in this thread and read that your wife is in the US on an F1 visa. From doing some Googling it looks like some countries have tax treaties with the US which allow foreign scholars working in the US to not to pay taxes on their income, and it might very well be the case that she doesn't have to pay federal income tax on her post-doc salary. silence_kit fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Feb 4, 2018 |
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Feb 4, 2018 13:42
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silence_kit posted:I don’t know regarding your first question about whether the IRS will notice that you stiffed them $12. Even if they notice, I’d be shocked if they cared or did anything about it, since it would be pretty uneconomical of them to put anybody on a $12 tax evasion case. However, I don’t have a deep understanding of how the IRS works and am not a tax professional. Of course, ignore a few letters and the IRS and interesting things may happen.
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Feb 4, 2018 17:22
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I bought bitcoin for $200 in May of 2015, and cashed it out in December 2017 for $4500. There's not much guidance on bitcoin profits and I'm not sure how to report the capital gains on my 2017 taxes. Would reporting it as long-term gains and paying the standard 15% cover me with the IRS?
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Feb 4, 2018 17:23
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PRADA SLUT posted:If I open a trad IRA, fund it, and close it for the same value I opened it for, all in the same tax year, do I need to report it? That depends. Did you complete the transaction within 60 days? If so, you're fine. If not, you owe tax plus a 10% penalty on everything that is not an over-contribution to the new IRA. Meaning you only have $5,500 minus the amount you put in to the old one in the same tax year of available contributions to the new IRA: the rest is an over contribution.
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Feb 4, 2018 17:29
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silence_kit posted:I snooped through your post history in this thread and read that your wife is in the US on an F1 visa. From doing some Googling it looks like some countries have tax treaties with the US which allow foreign scholars working in the US to not to pay taxes on their income, and it might very well be the case that she doesn't have to pay federal income tax on her post-doc salary. That would make sense, so the fact that her postdoc stipend wasn't taxed meant that we owed fewer taxes on our combined income? Then how come the salaried position she has now, where taxes are presumably being taken out of each paycheck she receives, is causing us to receive less money back? Is it just that our taxable income (me + her corporate salary) is in a higher tax bracket, or is it more likely that she's not having enough withheld on each paycheck? Admittedly I don't remember seeing her W-4 when she filled it out at her current position. She's also been on a green card since early 2016 if that matters. E: We're filing our return ourselves using TaxAct (yeah, yeah) going MFJ. She's hung up on the fact that our federal return was ~$2k when she had entered only her info (half-year stipend plus half-year corporate salary) but our return dropped to only a couple hundred when my tax info was added to that. But I don't think that means that I would owe (~2k-150) on my taxes if I filed separately. C-Euro fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Feb 4, 2018 |
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Feb 4, 2018 18:38
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C-Euro posted:That would make sense, so the fact that her postdoc stipend wasn't taxed meant that we owed fewer taxes on our combined income? Yes, assuming her postdoc stipend truly was not subject to US income tax. My earlier post was me questioning whether that was indeed true or not. It could be true. If true, your taxable income being lower means that you pay less taxes. C-Euro posted:Then how come the salaried position she has now, where taxes are presumably being taken out of each paycheck she receives, is causing us to receive less money back? Is it just that our taxable income (me + her corporate salary) is in a higher tax bracket, or is it more likely that she's not having enough withheld on each paycheck? Admittedly I don't remember seeing her W-4 when she filled it out at her current position. She's also been on a green card since early 2016 if that matters. I don't know. You need to compute and compare your total federal income tax amount this year to that of previous years, because you and I don't know how you filled out your W4's and how much tax you are having your companies withhold from your paychecks. silence_kit fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Feb 4, 2018 |
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Feb 4, 2018 19:25
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Motronic posted:That depends. Did you complete the transaction within 60 days? If so, you're fine. This was my question. If I never claimed it for a deduction, nor did I profit off it, I still pay tax + penalty?
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Feb 5, 2018 02:53
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Jikes posted:I bought bitcoin for $200 in May of 2015, and cashed it out in December 2017 for $4500. There's not much guidance on bitcoin profits and I'm not sure how to report the capital gains on my 2017 taxes. Would reporting it as long-term gains and paying the standard 15% cover me with the IRS? yes e: I suppose I should say, "it depends" (but it doesn't, really). The IRS says it wants to treat digital currencies as capital assets. So that's the best way to do i. sullat fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Feb 5, 2018 |
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Feb 5, 2018 05:22
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Jury duty pay really feels like it should be tax exempt.
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Feb 5, 2018 14:04
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If youre a Libertarian, everything feels like it should be tax exempt! But alas
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Feb 5, 2018 14:16
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sullat posted:yes https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-14-21.pdf Depends on what you're doing with it.
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Feb 5, 2018 17:22
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Uhhh, so PayPal just sent me 1099-K which I've never gotten from them before. It says I'm receiving it, and they're furnishing it to the IRS, because it meets the criteria of over $20k in sales and over 200 transactions. But it clearly says on the paper that I've only done $16k and 41 transactions. So why the gently caress are they doing it anyway? It's all just yard-sale type poo poo I've sold along the year, such as poo poo I bought on eBay and turned out I didn't need and sold at broke-even, more or less. Do I seriously have to explain 41 stupid things to the IRS now? Edit: Just talked to PayPal tax department, Massachusetts passed a law requiring PayPal to narc you if you got over $600 from them. They confirmed it is still only sent to the Feds if you break $20k+200x. Sooo... I guess I can tell Massachusetts that it's just occasional person-to-person non-business sales (which it is) and should be considered yard sales, which according to Mass.gov are non-taxable? http://blog.mass.gov/revenue/current-affairs-2/no-sales-tax-due-on-yard-sale-items/ Zero VGS fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Feb 5, 2018 |
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Feb 5, 2018 21:03
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What do I do if I haven't filed taxes in like 3 years? Three years ago I filed online like normal (this is all very simple restaurant job W-2 stuff) and I never received the return I expected, eventually I found a notice from the IRS in the mail that had been sitting there forever saying I needed to verify my identity before my filings could be accepted. I put it off and forgot about it, then the next year I was (seemingly?) unable to file because I hadn't done so the previous year. Basically that brings us to now, and I'd like to go back and knock this out but I'm not sure where to start. Mainly I have three questions a) Am I gonna be "in trouble"? I almost certainly owed no money to the federal government the last 3 years and was almost definitely owed a return. Pretty sure I even qualified for the EIC one year. Based on past years I'm guessing I may have owed a small amount to the state of North Carolina, though -- something in the neighborhood of like $50 each year b) Can I still expect to see the money from those tax refunds? Hope so, that would be sweet c) How do I get started here? I don't have any of the old W-2 information from those previous years and a couple employers have changed ownership or gone out of business. Can I get those directly from the IRS? Once I've done so can I take care of this stuff myself online or am I better off finding a professional? Thanks for entertaining my idiot questions 
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Feb 5, 2018 22:01
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Zero VGS posted:Uhhh, so PayPal just sent me 1099-K which I've never gotten from them before. It says I'm receiving it, and they're furnishing it to the IRS, because it meets the criteria of over $20k in sales and over 200 transactions. But it clearly says on the paper that I've only done $16k and 41 transactions. So why the gently caress are they doing it anyway? It's all just yard-sale type poo poo I've sold along the year, such as poo poo I bought on eBay and turned out I didn't need and sold at broke-even, more or less. Do I seriously have to explain 41 stupid things to the IRS now? Do you run a fb financial group lol someone on there was complaining bitterly about it. I'm interested in the answer so I can send it along.
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Feb 5, 2018 22:11
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I too am a Mass resident. I'm used to getting 1099Ks for my schedule C because I use Square and Etsy for my convention artwork business (even though I don't really hit the 20K or 200 transaction mark). I just got a 1099K from Paypal today for my personal Paypal because I received 741 dollars (total of two payments) because I used it to sell some camera gear this year.Zero VGS posted:Edit: Just talked to PayPal tax department, Massachusetts passed a law requiring PayPal to narc you if you got over $600 from them. They confirmed it is still only sent to the Feds if you break $20k+200x. Sooo... I guess I can tell Massachusetts that it's just occasional person-to-person non-business sales (which it is) and should be considered yard sales, which according to Mass.gov are non-taxable? http://blog.mass.gov/revenue/current-affairs-2/no-sales-tax-due-on-yard-sale-items/ That's for sales and use tax for items sold in Massachusetts. You're still expected to declare your income you earned from those activities. But whether you actually profited is up to question, and you'd need to figure that out. You would probably claim low to no profitable gain on that based on what you're saying, but I'm not a Mass CPA. kefkafloyd fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Feb 6, 2018 |
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Feb 6, 2018 00:12
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I'm going to eat a giant loving tax hit this year. Oops. First year of full double doctor W2 pay was massively under-withheld. Good thing all the other "first principles" of BFC mean that it will be an inconvenience, not a life altering event.
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Feb 6, 2018 00:25
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Whatever, you got a free loan.
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Feb 6, 2018 00:43
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potatoducks posted:Whatever, you got a free loan. The nice part is that it's been generating 2.25% sitting in my credit union and so I got some nice returns with it but still. Annoying. "All taxation is theft."
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Feb 6, 2018 01:04
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