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Hoodwinker posted:Use freetaxusa.com for the low low cost of $0 for federal. The name sounds scammy but it's legit. I've used it for the last 3 years. I then go on my state website and do those on there. You can also pay $12 to file your state form on FTUSA. Ok done. This was just as easy as turbotax, less annoying and patronizing (?), and only cost me 12bux. Highly recommended.
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Feb 24, 2020 04:38
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Hoodwinker posted:Use freetaxusa.com for the low low cost of $0 for federal. The name sounds scammy but it's legit. I've used it for the last 3 years. I then go on my state website and do those on there. You can also pay $12 to file your state form on FTUSA. Echoing this. I also have TurboTax inertia but I'm a very simple filer (single income renter with some interrst/dividends) so I ran it in parallel with freetaxusa and they both came to the same numbers so I just paid freetaxusa the $12 to file my state as well.
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Feb 24, 2020 16:22
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I've been using Freefilefillable forms for a few years now. Is there any reason to switch to freetaxusa? Looks likes its more of a guided process.
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Feb 24, 2020 18:26
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I'll echo freetaxusa.com being good. It asked every question that needed to be asked for my scenario, was cheap as nails even for the "Professional" version, and phone support was happy to help me with a clarification. A+++ would etc
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Feb 24, 2020 21:57
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Xenoborg posted:I've been using Freefilefillable forms for a few years now. Is there any reason to switch to freetaxusa? Looks likes its more of a guided process. The IRS isn't allowed to offer a guided process, so freefilefillable forms won't do any of that stuff that the other sites do.
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Feb 25, 2020 01:31
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IRS audit tip: If you're paying someone to prepare your return, they have to sign it. They have to fill out an entire additional document talking about how they prepared it. A document that says "Paid Preparer's Due Diligence" at the top, in bold. Due diligence, as in following the law and not committing fraud. On your tax return. The thing you are paying them to prepare, the thing you are signing and giving to the Federal Government. Why do you think they are trying to avoid being associated with your tax return? If someone ran up to you in the street and asked you to just hang on to their bloody knife for a couple weeks, would you do it? Use some common sense. C'mon.  Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Feb 25, 2020 |
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Feb 25, 2020 02:58
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Discendo Vox posted:IRS audit tip: Not to mention the whole its a fine if you dont sign thing. Though my current annoyance is CPAs who just wont DO the return, just got another person who got strung along way too long by a different place. I may be coming from a place where I get anxious about having any things on hold because of me, but if they havent filed 2018 by now?! I listen to the listing of excuses they got and Im thinking if I tried that crap about two minutes in my manager would walk by to brain me with one of our giant high capacity staplers. If I cant do it in a timely fashion I have an ethical obligation to hand it to somebody who can.
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Feb 25, 2020 15:09
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Xenoborg posted:I've been using Freefilefillable forms for a few years now. Is there any reason to switch to freetaxusa? Looks likes its more of a guided process. I used free file fillable forms three years in a row and got a cp2000 three years in a row. Maybe I'm dumb but it's pretty easy to gently caress up the raw forms. In one case, freefilefillableforms didn't even support what I needed to do (instructions told me to write "rollover" in the margin).
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Feb 25, 2020 15:24
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Asset allocation question for optimizing taxes. I own a mix of domestic and international total market index funds spread across trad ira and taxable brokerage. I got in my form 1099-DIV and line 7 shows $203 of Foreign Tax Paid which looks like I can take as a credit. Does this mean that any Total International Index Fund I'm holding in IRA's just lost that credit and I should exchange stuff around so 100% of my international allocation is in my taxable brokerage account to optimize my taxes? For example, fake numbers: Current: IRA: $70k Total Domestic; $30k Total International Taxable: $70k Total Domestic; $30k Total International Future: IRA: $100k Total Domestic Taxable: $40k Total Domestic; $60k Total International
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Feb 25, 2020 23:15
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Looking to get a quick clarification: My wife began work in September in which she began being covered under a 403(b). Prior to that she was doing contract work for the same school in the previous school year. I'm at the income level where I am only able to deduct contributions to a traditional IRA if she is considered 'not covered' by an employer. Does this apply if she was covered for ANY part of the year, or is there an opportunity to fund one last deductible contribution now and have it be deductible? My haunches tell me that I will not be able to deduct this contribution and that I should have taken the amount that I wanted to contribute and started having that be sent to the 403(b) in September, but wanted to verify. Thank you!
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Feb 26, 2020 00:46
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Discendo Vox posted:IRS audit tip: And if I do my friend's for free?
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Feb 26, 2020 01:11
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TraderStav posted:Looking to get a quick clarification: Did she contribute to that plan or had contributions from her employer placed in that plan at any point during the year? If so, then it seems as if your contribution is not deductible. https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/are-you-covered-by-an-employers-retirement-plan
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Feb 26, 2020 04:27
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Deviant posted:And if I do my friend's for free? s'fine. See also: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/irs-tax-volunteers https://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/news/NTA_Blog_TAP_is_now_recruiting_volunteers https://improveirs.org/
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Feb 26, 2020 05:42
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Ancillary Character posted:Did she contribute to that plan or had contributions from her employer placed in that plan at any point during the year? If so, then it seems as if your contribution is not deductible. Actually no to both, but it was available to sign up for and start contributions. Will check the W2 for box 13, which looks like the trigger for whether or not the IRS acknowledges she is covered. Thank you for the help!
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Feb 26, 2020 12:26
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If I've received my refund ( ), is there still a significant chance (so to speak) of the IRS coming back with a nastygram within a few months, or is the process basically over at that point?
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Feb 26, 2020 20:58
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Ciaphas posted:If I've received my refund ( If you hosed up or get really unlucky they can send you a letter at anytime. Generally if you missed some part of your income or what you reported doesn't match their records you'll hear from them sometime in the next few months. If they decide to audit your deductions or credits they may send a letter anytime within the next 3 years. Keep your paperwork at least three years. But the odds of getting a letter is small so don't live in fear.
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Feb 26, 2020 21:04
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Works for me; mostly it's a question of keeping some of the refund around to cover for problems or not. Sounds like no need.
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Feb 26, 2020 21:21
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Epi Lepi posted:If you hosed up or get really unlucky they can send you a letter at anytime. Generally if you missed some part of your income or what you reported doesn't match their records you'll hear from them sometime in the next few months. If they decide to audit your deductions or credits they may send a letter anytime within the next 3 years. Also the odds of that letter being correct may vary. If it's a "you left this form's information off your return" they probably are correct about you owing money on it unless there's some mechanism to offset the income (like a missed 1099-SA HSA distribution where you mainly just need to tell them it was used for medical expenses). The deductions/credits thing is kind of random and speaking on this side of it seems to be linked to some category the IRS decided to examine that particular year; depending on what they picked it may be accurate or wildly off. Had a bunch of clients get dinged a few years ago for claiming mortgage interest without their name on the 1098, the fact that marriages/divorces and bank screw ups make that of dubious accuracy for figuring out who claimed mortgage interest wrongly was apparently not considered in that choice (thankfully they accepted "here's proof this person was the one actually paying" for a response). In any event I recommend having somebody double-check any letter before sending payment, you'd be amazed how often it boils down to "the IRS/state doesn't know some mitigating fact". Kind of annoying really how those things are written to default to a "Pay us now" attitude rather than "Explain this" given how many should really be the latter.
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Feb 27, 2020 00:32
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I've got an expat tax question: I'm a US citizen that lives Korea (technically dual US/KR citizen). I'm currently considering an offer from a US company where I would be paid as a 1099 contractor for work done entirely in Korea. The US and KR have a joint social security totalization agreement or whatever it's called, and for my last (non-contractor/salaried) job I just had to pay the social security specific taxes into the Korean system and that was it. From what I've read, 1099 contractors are normally obligated to pay self-employment tax for social security/medicare, even for work done outside the US, and the FEIE doesn't apply to it, since it's considered separate from income tax. Do the joint social security agreements still apply to the self-employment tax (so I would only have to pay into the Korean system)? I already emailed my usual KR tax person about this, but it's tax season so she's busy and I have no idea when she will actually get around to responding, so I figured I might as well also ask in here. astr0man fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Feb 27, 2020 |
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Feb 27, 2020 01:59
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astr0man posted:Do the joint social security agreements still apply to the self-employment tax (so I would only have to pay into the Korean system)? Yes, but you will need to attach a certificate from Korean social security citing the tax treaty and confirming your enrollment.
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Feb 27, 2020 02:10
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Alright, thanks!
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Feb 27, 2020 02:17
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Do people that exempt themselves from SS via a totalization agreement get SS benefits in the US?
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Feb 27, 2020 03:55
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You can apply your credits from one social security system to the other, or you can draw from both countries when you retire. If you are overseas from a country that you have a pension with, you are usually paid from the nearest embassy or consulate.
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Feb 27, 2020 03:59
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MadDogMike posted:Also the odds of that letter being correct may vary. If it's a "you left this form's information off your return" they probably are correct about you owing money on it unless there's some mechanism to offset the income (like a missed 1099-SA HSA distribution where you mainly just need to tell them it was used for medical expenses). The deductions/credits thing is kind of random and speaking on this side of it seems to be linked to some category the IRS decided to examine that particular year; depending on what they picked it may be accurate or wildly off. Had a bunch of clients get dinged a few years ago for claiming mortgage interest without their name on the 1098, the fact that marriages/divorces and bank screw ups make that of dubious accuracy for figuring out who claimed mortgage interest wrongly was apparently not considered in that choice (thankfully they accepted "here's proof this person was the one actually paying" for a response). In any event I recommend having somebody double-check any letter before sending payment, you'd be amazed how often it boils down to "the IRS/state doesn't know some mitigating fact". Kind of annoying really how those things are written to default to a "Pay us now" attitude rather than "Explain this" given how many should really be the latter. The IRS does "special projects" for a variety of reasons, often to test new ways of evaluating returns for audit potential, or to collect data about part of the taxpayer population to see if they should be audited more. Special projects are one of the ways the IRS can improve its procedures, though regrettably as with many other areas, the special projects model is profoundly compromised by insufficient resources and poor support from above. I'm hoping to propose a special project myself at some point. Going entirely from what you said, it sounds like they may have been evaluating whether there was some sort of evasion practice using 1098s without proper names, something that would justify making it a factor in audit decisions going forward. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Feb 27, 2020 |
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Feb 27, 2020 05:08
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Discendo Vox posted:The IRS does "special projects" for a variety of reasons, often to test new ways of evaluating returns for audit potential, or to collect data about part of the taxpayer population to see if they should be audited more. Special projects are one of the ways the IRS can improve its procedures, though regrettably as with many other areas, the special projects model is profoundly compromised by insufficient resources and poor support from above. I'm hoping to propose a special project myself at some point. Going entirely from what you said, it sounds like they may have been evaluating whether there was some sort of evasion practice using 1098s without proper names, something that would justify making it a factor in audit decisions going forward. That would explain a lot if they were testing audit effectiveness of checking 1098s, just struck me as a foolish choice at the time since it flagged a bunch of people who didnt actually owe anything. If they were testing if it was effective rather than assuming it was that makes more sense. Wasnt quite as funny as the year when a focus on double checking basis of capital transactions wound up with us finding additional capital losses for a bunch of clients and getting them refunds thanks to the letters, though that one must have caught a bunch of people since Ive seen many of those since.
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Feb 27, 2020 21:38
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Hypothetically, if you were to exercise ISO stock options and the most recent valuation put the fair market value of the options below the exercise price, would that have any effect on tax burden?
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Feb 27, 2020 23:29
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KillHour posted:Hypothetically, if you were to exercise ISO stock options and the most recent valuation put the fair market value of the options below the exercise price, would that have any effect on tax burden? If I reading this right I'd assume you wouldn't have a tax burden because there was no gain. I doubt you'd be able to claim the loss though, but maybe.
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Feb 27, 2020 23:43
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Motronic posted:If I reading this right I'd assume you wouldn't have a tax burden because there was no gain. I doubt you'd be able to claim the loss though, but maybe. That's what I figured. Just wanted to double check.
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Feb 27, 2020 23:59
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MadDogMike posted:That would explain a lot if they were testing audit effectiveness of checking 1098s, just struck me as a foolish choice at the time since it flagged a bunch of people who didnt actually owe anything. If they were testing if it was effective rather than assuming it was that makes more sense. Wasnt quite as funny as the year when a focus on double checking basis of capital transactions wound up with us finding additional capital losses for a bunch of clients and getting them refunds thanks to the letters, though that one must have caught a bunch of people since Ive seen many of those since. To be clear the goal's accuracy, not just finding missing revenue- there are special projects that just get people more refunds, I think. I may audit people because we think they may owe additional tax, but if I find there's a way they should've gotten a refund, they get that refund.
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Feb 29, 2020 22:05
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Lol man hopefully next year we do a better job with our W4s, because this year between state and federal taxes we underpaid by 16k. I'm still confused as to at what point I should be looking at getting an accountant.
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Feb 29, 2020 23:46
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Residency Evil posted:Lol man hopefully next year we do a better job with our W4s, because this year between state and federal taxes we underpaid by 16k. Add your two expected incomes together. Look at the marginal rate. Make sure you withhold at that rate on your w-4. If you are likely to earn similar amounts this year just pick one of your W-4's and add $1300/month to it making no other changes. I assume you're individually withholding at 32% or 35% but because you're both high earners more or less one of your incomes should be withheld entirely at the top marginal rate - not the ramped up amount. Easiest way is to compare stubs quarterly and make sure you're tracking correctly and pay quarterly taxes on the difference that isn't within the safe harbor. Or maybe just set it to Single and that should solve a lot of it. That will be $300. H110Hawk fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Feb 29, 2020 |
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Feb 29, 2020 23:52
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H110Hawk posted:Add your two expected incomes together. Look at the marginal rate. Make sure you withhold at that rate on your w-4. If you are likely to earn similar amounts this year just pick one of your W-4's and add $1300/month to it making no other changes. I assume you're individually withholding at 32% or 35% but because you're both high earners more or less one of your incomes should be withheld entirely at the top marginal rate - not the ramped up amount. Easiest way is to compare stubs quarterly and make sure you're tracking correctly and pay quarterly taxes on the difference that isn't within the safe harbor. To add to this, this year we had a very large mortgage deduction due to the fact that we were on a 30 year mortgage. We "saved"  a bunch of money on taxes. Since rates dropped this year and I refinanced to a 15 year at a much lower rate, I expect that won't hold true next year. I'm also not sure how much we'll end up making this year. Fwiw, I did change our W4s this year to have box 2C checked.I have a minimal amount of 1099 income as the vast majority is W2, so I'm thinking I can still take care of this myself, and just roll the dice every year.
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Mar 1, 2020 00:10
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I just finished doing my taxes with TurboTax. I had to do three states and I think I ended up paying TurboTax like $170 for the pleasure including the initial software and efiling. It also seemed like the prompts for the Massachusetts return just completely forgot to ask about the allocation of dividends and interests for partial year residency (unless it was somewhere weird that I didn't think to look?), so after spending like 45 minutes going through all the menus multiple times without success I eventually realized I could at least just go into the form view and fix it from there. Maybe I'll try freetaxusa next year.
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Mar 1, 2020 22:48
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I received a 1099-R for withdrawing $500 from a Vanguard Roth IRA in 2019. From my understanding, despite being under 59.5, this should be a penalty/tax free withdrawal since it could be said I was withdrawing from previous contributions, rather than earnings. However, if I add this 1099-R to TaxAct, it adds $50 to my tax liability as if I'm being hit with the 10% penalty. Am I misunderstanding the criteria for avoiding the 10% penalty, or is there some issue with how I'm entering this into my taxes? Should I just not add the 1099-R distribution to my taxes if I'm confident this could be offset by prior contributions?
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Mar 2, 2020 02:37
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Splinter posted:I received a 1099-R for withdrawing $500 from a Vanguard Roth IRA in 2019. From my understanding, despite being under 59.5, this should be a penalty/tax free withdrawal since it could be said I was withdrawing from previous contributions, rather than earnings. However, if I add this 1099-R to TaxAct, it adds $50 to my tax liability as if I'm being hit with the 10% penalty. Am I misunderstanding the criteria for avoiding the 10% penalty, or is there some issue with how I'm entering this into my taxes? Should I just not add the 1099-R distribution to my taxes if I'm confident this could be offset by prior contributions? You need to complete Part III of Form 8606 to record your contribution basis and use it to offset this distribution. The software might reference Form 8606 or Form 5329 (the form that calculates the additional penalty) on the entry screen for the 1099-R. You should NOT just leave the 1099-R off your return. That would guarantee an IRS letter in the fall.
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Mar 2, 2020 04:16
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Splinter posted:I received a 1099-R for withdrawing $500 from a Vanguard Roth IRA in 2019. From my understanding, despite being under 59.5, this should be a penalty/tax free withdrawal since it could be said I was withdrawing from previous contributions, rather than earnings. However, if I add this 1099-R to TaxAct, it adds $50 to my tax liability as if I'm being hit with the 10% penalty. Am I misunderstanding the criteria for avoiding the 10% penalty, or is there some issue with how I'm entering this into my taxes? Should I just not add the 1099-R distribution to my taxes if I'm confident this could be offset by prior contributions? Were these originally direct Roth contributions or were they all from backdoor conversions, and if so, how long ago were the conversions made?
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Mar 2, 2020 04:17
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I made more Money this year than I thought I would and went over the Income cap on Roth IRA contributions. Is there a simple way to fix this / can someone link me to it?
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Mar 2, 2020 04:35
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EwokEntourage posted:I made more Money this year than I thought I would and went over the Income cap on Roth IRA contributions. Is there a simple way to fix this / can someone link me to it? Withdraw your excess contributions by April 15.
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Mar 2, 2020 08:28
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urnisme posted:You need to complete Part III of Form 8606 to record your contribution basis and use it to offset this distribution. The software might reference Form 8606 or Form 5329 (the form that calculates the additional penalty) on the entry screen for the 1099-R. 8606 put me on the right path. Turns out I had directly entered the 1099-R form values, rather than following the 1099-R software workflow which eventually gets to questions regarding my Roth basis. Thanks!
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Mar 2, 2020 08:28
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probably a stupid question that's already been answered before - i moved states this year and did my federal for free on creditkarma but can't do my state return there because of the move. what's the best (cheapest) way to file my state taxes?
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Mar 2, 2020 16:17
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