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MadDogMike posted:
Do you seriously have to give up your Fourth Amendment rights to take a home office deduction?
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Jan 28, 2019 06:58
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There's also the home office safe harbor introduced a few years ago which gets you a lot lower deduction in favor of not having to do as much paperwork.
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Jan 28, 2019 15:12
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Konstantin posted:Do you seriously have to give up your Fourth Amendment rights to take a home office deduction?
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Jan 28, 2019 16:10
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Thanks for the replies on the home office space guys. So we decided to use our family room for my wife’s office based on your replies. We have a personal computer there which we were planning on transferring the assets to the business. This also happens to be my gaming pc. We were going to depreciate half the computer on our taxes since it would be used half for business and half for personal use. I guess we can’t do this because it’s automatic proof that the office is used as my gaming room on nights and weekends? Lol
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Jan 28, 2019 16:31
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Mister Fister posted:Thanks for the replies on the home office space guys. So we decided to use our family room for my wife’s office based on your replies. We have a personal computer there which we were planning on transferring the assets to the business. This also happens to be my gaming pc. We were going to depreciate half the computer on our taxes since it would be used half for business and half for personal use. I guess we can’t do this because it’s automatic proof that the office is used as my gaming room on nights and weekends? Lol Family room is going to be hard going, ESPECIALLY if the computer she's using is being used for gaming. Home office space needs to be regularly and exclusively used for business. Sounds like you're already going to lose any audit.
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Jan 28, 2019 18:10
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AbbiTheDog posted:Family room is going to be hard going, ESPECIALLY if the computer she's using is being used for gaming. Dang. It’s a small room, maybe 30 percent larger than my bedroom and way smaller than my living room. I think if I get rid of the futon and gaming pc there maybe it could work.
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Jan 28, 2019 18:28
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After 4 years of blood, sweat and toil, I finally graduated from grad school. I've been cash flowing this the entire time and have paid enough that I have been able to max out the lifetime learning credit. You can imagine my surprise when over the weekend I got my 1098-T that showed I only paid $3443.80. This is what I paid in the fall term for the last class I needed, what I paid in the spring somehow didn't get reported. By my records I paid $8679.20. I called them this morning and the representative said they went through a complicated reporting change at the request of the IRS but was clearly clueless about the how or why. From what I could figure out because I enrolled in my Spring 2018 classes in Fall, 2017 (which of course you pick out your classes ahead of time), it wasn't a reportable 2018 education expense. I was actually billed for these classes in 2018, I paid for them in 2018. Is this a result of Trump tax bill that the Republicans passed last year? Am I stuck deducting the smaller amount or if I can back up the fact I wrote checks for $8679.20 am I able to deduct the full amount?
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Jan 28, 2019 19:21
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Did your 2017 1098-T have Box 7 checked? If so, Spring 2018 tuition was included in your last years' ish. If not, call them back. If you paid for Spring 2018 in the year 2018, it should be on your 2018 1098-T by my logic.... but I've seen Universities take some weird liberties with how they report stuff on 1098-T. Check your last year's 1098-T and if Box 7 is not checked, that's another call to the Uni to ask: "When and how will my Spring 2018 tuition cost be reported, or are you planning on providing incomplete records to both me and the IRS?" (save the second half of that sentence for if they get pissy about you asking questions - open with honey, get the vinegar if people decide to be dicks imo) e: If Box 7 was checked on last year's 1098-T, you already got the deduction for Spring 2018 tuition expense on last year's taxes There's an outside chance they plan to reissue 2017 1098-Ts to include your Spring 2018 amount, which would be a dick move, and would mean amending your 2017 return to get that deduction.
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Jan 28, 2019 19:36
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black.lion posted:Did your 2017 1098-T have Box 7 checked? If so, Spring 2018 tuition was included in your last years' ish. If not, call them back. I just checked last year's 10988-T. Box 7 was checked.....
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Jan 28, 2019 19:45
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Then they included your Spring tuition on last year's statement even though you hadn't paid it, sorry m8  
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Jan 28, 2019 19:47
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I took an early distribution from a Roth IRA in 2018. At the time, I expected to have to pay only a 10% penalty on it, since I already contributed it all after taxes, none of the distribution was earnings, and I made the first contribution at least 5 years ago. However, now I'm doing my taxes (TurboTax) and reading more about the five year rule. I think I misunderstood previously. Now I'm seeing that I have to consider the early distribution as taxable income, plus pay the 10% penalty. That's because while my first Roth contribution was in 2013, it was to a Roth 401k, which I rolled into a new Roth IRA in 2018, then took the early distribution. My new understanding is that the 5 year rule starts running in 2018 (when the Roth IRA opened) rather than 2013. Is that correct?
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Jan 28, 2019 21:56
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I thought you could take out contributions (but not earnings) whenever without penalty?
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Jan 28, 2019 22:02
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:I thought you could take out contributions (but not earnings) whenever without penalty?
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Jan 28, 2019 22:10
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So I'm owed back pay from a previous employer from last year, but it isn't from a lawsuit or SSDI and that's all I can find info on when I search. I'm pretty sure it will count as income for this year but I want to double check before starting my taxes.
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Jan 28, 2019 23:02
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In 2018 I got a check for some unclaimed property from the state. The claim was in my name but my dad (who passed away a few years ago) was an additional owner. The money doesn’t seem to be related to an IRA or anything, but to an investment made by my dad that was for some reason in my name. The state didn’t give me a 1099 for this and as far as I know didn’t withhold anything before they sent me the check. I am assuming I need to report all of this money on my tax return, is this correct?
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Jan 29, 2019 00:02
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SiGmA_X posted:You have to substantiate the basis for the home office deduction. It’s your choice to take the deduction or not. Yeah, the reason they're anal (and yes, why they can demand to see the office or at least proof it's used for business) is because mixing personal and business expenses is a big can of worms that a lot of people manage to open, so any expense that tends to touch on something in that category gets you heightened scrutiny because so many people screw it up, by mistake or deliberately. Now they are not going to send stormtroopers to bash down the door of every person with a home office, but if you happen to get chosen for review you need to have your ducks in a row in advance because if it's unclear if it's personal or business you are screwed pretty much by default. And given how much home office expenses can add up to, that can be an UGLY thing to have suddenly added to your taxable self employment income for potentially a lot of years.
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Jan 29, 2019 09:31
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OK, so we figured out what happened with my withholding, so that's all squared away. Thanks for the help, it was in fact an incorrect W4. However, can someone explain something to me....how does the standard deduction actually work? Like, when does it come into play in the timing sequence. For example, let's say there's a married couple making $200k total, each $100k, MFJ. Each contributes 12% to 401k. Total income is $200k, total taxable income is $176k. The tax due for that amount is around $32k. Standard deduction is $24k. Does that reduce the $176k in taxable income to $152k, at which point taxes due would really be $24k?
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Jan 29, 2019 16:56
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Omne posted:OK, so we figured out what happened with my withholding, so that's all squared away. Thanks for the help, it was in fact an incorrect W4.
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Jan 29, 2019 17:12
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Badger of Basra posted:In 2018 I got a check for some unclaimed property from the state. The claim was in my name but my dad (who passed away a few years ago) was an additional owner. The money doesn’t seem to be related to an IRA or anything, but to an investment made by my dad that was for some reason in my name. It sounds like it was already your money and therefore not income.
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Jan 29, 2019 17:22
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Hoodwinker posted:Yes. OK, thanks for the sanity check. So in that case, you paid $32k in taxes, but you should have paid only $24k in taxes, leading to a $8k refund?
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Jan 29, 2019 17:26
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Omne posted:OK, thanks for the sanity check.
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Jan 29, 2019 17:46
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Omne posted:Standard deduction is $24k. Does that reduce the $176k in taxable income to $152k, at which point taxes due would really be $24k? I had completely forgotten about this and went to start doing all of my itemizations over the weekend before realizing that I wasn't going to break it and that my taxes are going to take like 2 hours this year instead of a full day.
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Jan 29, 2019 19:17
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That's what I thought. I'm going to blow up and start from scratch to see what I did wrong. We will definitely owe for 2018, but it shouldn't be as much as the tool told me. Also means I likely need to readjust my extra withholding. Nephzinho posted:I had completely forgotten about this and went to start doing all of my itemizations over the weekend before realizing that I wasn't going to break it and that my taxes are going to take like 2 hours this year instead of a full day. Glad I can help!
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Jan 29, 2019 19:39
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Omne posted:That's what I thought.
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Jan 29, 2019 20:08
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I have a lot of gambling winnings and losses, so I am absolutely hosed this year LOL.
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Jan 29, 2019 20:12
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How do I calculate how much a withholding is worth? I'm failing Google. A quick Calc at 1 allowance shows me getting a $1k+ refund, but how can I calc it if I did 2 allowances? What is that extra allowance worth to me, basically?
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Jan 29, 2019 20:46
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Fhqwhgads posted:How do I calculate how much a withholding is worth? I'm failing Google. A quick Calc at 1 allowance shows me getting a $1k+ refund, but how can I calc it if I did 2 allowances? What is that extra allowance worth to me, basically? quote:Withholding allowance. The 2019 amount for one withholding allowance on an annual basis is $4,200. The reason I built that tool for myself is because the W4 is poo poo-rear end at answering these kinds of questions. "How much is each allowance worth? If I change my allowances to 2 from 1 on my 11th paycheck with $X withheld so far, how much will that affect my return? How much additional withholding do I need to have in order to get a refund instead of owing?" With some tinkering you can answer these questions using that spreadsheet, assuming you can reduce your situation down to the right set of variables. It's got the withholding tables, etc. built into it, so please by all means make a copy for yourself and make the necessary changes so it works for you. Hoodwinker fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Jan 29, 2019 |
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Jan 29, 2019 20:54
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Oh sweet. I'll have to take a look when I'm at home! Edit: I'm not a weird tax case. Single no dependents, some taxable investments but any dividends would probably be single digit taxes, etc.
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Jan 29, 2019 21:18
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Hoodwinker posted:Once again plugging this thing I made for calculating out your tax burden, assuming you're taking the standard deduction. The state income tax thing on there is a relic you don't have to pay attention to for calculating federal withholding. It won't cover things like rental income or too much in the way of tracking taxes owed on dividends but it'll cover the basics and you can try to model out the rest from that point. This thing is great. I've made a copy and will do some adjusting - I have 26 pay periods, my wife has 24, so I need to split that. And right now it is miscalculating the withholding per paycheck (i.e. $1000 divided by 2 should be $500/check, but it's saying the withholding is actually $430 or so)
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Jan 29, 2019 21:20
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LorneReams posted:I have a lot of gambling winnings and losses, so I am absolutely hosed this year LOL. Generally speaking, if you itemize you can deduct properly documented losses up to the amount of your winnings. If you're taking significant winnings, you should have the casino withhold, increase withholdings on any W2 job you had and/or pay estimated taxes. If you do it professionally that's a whole other ballgame.
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Jan 29, 2019 21:26
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Omne posted:This thing is great. I've made a copy and will do some adjusting - I have 26 pay periods, my wife has 24, so I need to split that. And right now it is miscalculating the withholding per paycheck (i.e. $1000 divided by 2 should be $500/check, but it's saying the withholding is actually $430 or so) Edit: Updated the sheet to handle the first part (difference in partner pay period length). You can make a new copy if you'd like. Hoodwinker fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Jan 29, 2019 |
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Jan 29, 2019 21:28
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BonerGhost posted:Generally speaking, if you itemize you can deduct properly documented losses up to the amount of your winnings. If you're taking significant winnings, you should have the casino withhold, increase withholdings on any W2 job you had and/or pay estimated taxes. I did, it just sucks with such a high standard deduction and no exemptions. I have little else to deduct.
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Jan 29, 2019 23:57
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Hoodwinker posted:Yeah I don't have it split for if you and your spouse have different pay periods. I'll fix that up at some point. Can you explain the other part though? Sure thing. This is for the section on withholding, lines 36-41. I have Your Taxes marked as $799.98, which is what's been taken out of my paychecks to date (2). Cell D38 says my biweekly WH is $324.32, when it should be $399.99. On the next line, I input my wife's $641 total withheld, but the biweekly WH is marked as $348.75, but that's not right either. I can't figure out how those numbers come to be; she pays $641/month in fed withholding, which even if you calculated that out to be over 26 paychecks instead of 24, it would be $591.69. My withholding (since adjusted by a manual number) is $399.99 per paycheck, which over the year is $10,399.74 but in cell C38 it says $8,581.61. Put another way, that section makes it look like we drastically underwithhold (to the tune of $10k+).
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Jan 30, 2019 01:36
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Omne posted:Sure thing. This is for the section on withholding, lines 36-41. I have Your Taxes marked as $799.98, which is what's been taken out of my paychecks to date (2). Cell D38 says my biweekly WH is $324.32, when it should be $399.99. On the next line, I input my wife's $641 total withheld, but the biweekly WH is marked as $348.75, but that's not right either. I can't figure out how those numbers come to be; she pays $641/month in fed withholding, which even if you calculated that out to be over 26 paychecks instead of 24, it would be $591.69. My withholding (since adjusted by a manual number) is $399.99 per paycheck, which over the year is $10,399.74 but in cell C38 it says $8,581.61. 1. You have a bonus somewhere in cells B8:B10 that you've included. 2. You are back-loading your 401k contributions, so you have the number set in D8 but you haven't had any pulled out of your paycheck yet? 3. You have 457b pre-tax contributions? These currently aren't included in the pay deductions section calculation. 4. You have pay deductions that don't get taken out every paycheck? 5. You have HSA contributions in column D? These aren't currently added to the pay deductions section (you should add this reference yourself). 6. You withhold on your W4 as "Married, but withholding at the higher Single rate" but you have "Married" marked at the top? 7. You have additional withholding on your W4 but not marked on the sheet? 8. You have income from other sources in your Gross Income cells in the "You" box. All of these things will create a disparity from what is calculated vs. what you see on your pay checks, one way or another. The amount you're seeing from the withholding number at D38/D39 reflects what your withholding would be if your deductions and income were identical on every paycheck. Your company doesn't do this. They calculate your withholding from a current snapshot at each pay period. The sheet calculates it holistically. If you're seeing that the calculated withholding is drastically lower than your actual paycheck withholding, something isn't being included on the sheet or your pay deductions section is whack. Using my own numbers as an example, when I set my gross income to just my salary and set my deductions to exactly equal to what they were on my last pay stub, the number it gives is within $1 of what was on the pay stub ($327.22 actually withheld vs. $326.25 calculated withholding). Try reducing your income down to just your salary and set your deductions exactly equal to what you see on the stub and tell me if there's still a difference. If you do get your calculated withholding number to equal the average amount of withholding and you're still seeing a red number in cell C41, you are underwithholding though. Hoodwinker fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Jan 30, 2019 |
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Jan 30, 2019 04:59
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I'm converting about $5100 of (my wife's) traditional IRA to Roth. Do we need to make an estimated tax payment? My understanding is that so long as our W2 withholdings cover everything at the end of the year then we should not. I accounted for this when choosing my W4 withholdings, so I shouldn't owe any at the end of 2019. MFJ, 12% Marginal Tax Bracket \/\/ e: cool thanks 
Harveygod fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jan 30, 2019 |
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Jan 30, 2019 19:50
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Harveygod posted:I'm converting about $5100 of (my wife's) traditional IRA to Roth. Do we need to make an estimated tax payment? My understanding is that so long as our W2 withholdings cover everything at the end of the year then we should not. I accounted for this when choosing my W4 withholdings, so I shouldn't owe any at the end of 2019.
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Jan 30, 2019 20:06
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Is there any reason to not use Credit Karma's online tax tool? I am single, no dependents (except myself) and Rent. I contribute to 401k/HSA through my work but no other stock/IRA contributions. I do have a 1099-E with 700$ interest. I've been reading that the Credit Karma works out well for easy situations like mine.. But I think they're related to the gawker sites and I read a lot of those. So not sure if its all super bias, or normal bias. Otherwise, what would be a good alternative? Thanks!
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Jan 30, 2019 22:13
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deong posted:Is there any reason to not use Credit Karma's online tax tool?
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Jan 30, 2019 22:24
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Hoodwinker posted:freetaxusa.com is legit. I used them last year. Less shady than both TurboTax and CreditKarma. Awesome. Thanks.
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Jan 30, 2019 22:31
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deong posted:Is there any reason to not use Credit Karma's online tax tool? I don't know Credit Karma's tax preparation has improved, but I tried to use it when it launched and had problems, especially related to state taxes. There were some Oregon tax credits that there didn't appear to be any way to enter, and when I sent an email to their support team asking about it, they waited 3 months to reply that they didn't understand my question.
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Jan 30, 2019 23:16
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