US Income Tax Thread: Bank error in your favor! GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > US Income Tax Thread: Bank error in your favor! GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL.

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Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Bojanglesworth posted:

It will be, but I am knee deep into buying a house and my lender needs me to file like now.

Just call HR and ask them. Or a manger or someone who might know or know someone who does. Or dig up an old W-2, it's unlikely it changed.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2016 04:54

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 05:06

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Stinky_Pete posted:

Hello all,

First full year of employment and my employer withheld 8318 for Federal taxes, but TurboTax says that I owe 8700.

I get if my employer withheld assuming I would take the standard deduction, but I would have thought that I would end up overpaying because I also get a 2500 deduction for paying student loan interest.

Why didn't they withhold more if I was going to end up owing?

Couple things here:

First they only withhold as much as you tell them to when you fill out your W-4. If you wrote down more allowances than you ended up having you end up paying. If you are a single individual and claiming yourself you should have put Single and 1 to break even or get a refund. If you put more allowances down, or if your parents ended up claiming you then you end up owing.

Second, there's a difference between deductions and credits. Deductions reduce the income you're taxed on, credits reduce your tax liability. So that $2,500 from loan interest reduces your income. If you're in the 10% bracket for instance that means you only save $250 on your taxes.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2016 22:49

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

RealFoxy posted:

If I'm understanding this correctly, I can itemize up to .02% of my yearly income for returns? I would probably hit that in gas/milage alone. I'm used to filling out the travel sheets from an old job, so all it would take is just making a template, putting it in a binder, and then writing down milage while I'm out + Keeping gas receipts, correct?

No, when you itemize business expenses only the amount that exceeds 2% of your income is deductible.

So if you make $100k you need more than $2k of expenses before they start to count and then, that excess plus other itemizable deductions (state income or sales taxes, mortgage interest, real estate taxes, charitable donations, medical expenses) must exceed your standard deduction amount to actually benefit you.

Edit: Well, yes that's what you should do to keep track of everything, plus keep repair receipts that show mileage. Just wanted to make sure you understood how itemized deductions work.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2016 20:25

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

NancyPants posted:

Also, I'm trying to figure out if/how I might be able to establish FL residency without currently living there absolutely for the income tax benefits; husband is active duty military who is a FL resident stationed in NE, I am a NE resident currently. Anyone ever heard of this?

Here are two links that should help you out:

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1901517-what-is-my-military-state-of-residence

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1901516-military-spouses-and-state-taxes

It looks to me that as long as he has FL as his state of residence or can get it approved as his state of residence then it counts for you too.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2016 19:13

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Yawgmoft posted:

Ok I have what might be a ridiculously specific question.

So I'm trying to buy an apartment in NYC. In NYC we have these things called "HDFCs", or basically Co ops that are price stabilized. Now the problem with this is that they basically require cash in hand of the full purchase price, so hundreds of thousands of dollars. I found one of these places I liked and long story short I don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars. My mother wants to give me the money, but I in turn do not want her loving herself in taxes. I'm pretty sure she's taking it out of her IRA. So my question is is there any way to have her somehow gift me the money so I take the tax hit, or otherwise use the fact that the money is going towards home buying mitigate the tax cost?

Whether she gifts it to you or not is irrelevant on whether it's taxable for her. If she's withdrawing from a traditional IRA she will pay normal income taxes plus a 10% penalty if she is under 59 and 1/2 years old. If it's a ROTH IRA it's tax free as long as she is over 59 and 1/2.

On top of that there is gift taxes to consider. Any individual can give any number of other individuals $14,000 per year and be exempt from gift taxes. Once you're over that amount per person you have to file a gift tax return.

Your mother however is allowed to give you a loan of the amount you need as long as she charges you interest. An interest free loan would just be considered a gift to the IRS. She only has to charge you the minimum interest rate established by the IRS which you can figure out from the charts on this page: https://apps.irs.gov/app/picklist/list/federalRates.html

I hope that helps.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2016 19:24

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Raimondo posted:

My wife's job stopped giving her itemized paystubs sometime in August.

In January she discovered they stopped paying the health insurance in December (despite her getting the same paycheck amount with health insurance deducted). Her 1095-C shows coverage Jan - Nov with December showing no coverage. I'm struggling to figure out if we're going to have to pay a penalty or not for not being covered for December.

Also, she received a W2 from her employer with them saying it was incorrect, but a corrected one would be on its way. A couple weeks later she got the "corrected" one, but we did the math and the federal tax witheld was off by a couple thousand. Her employer acknowledged that, said they would get another corrected one soon. My question is, if we get close to the deadline and we still don't have an accurate W-2, should we just file using it, and try and correct it later?

First, that sounds sketchy as hell that they stopped covering her health insurance but she kept getting amounts deducted for health insurance from her paycheck. I would investigate that further and see exactly what was being deducted and when.

Second, you probably will not have to pay a penalty as missing up to 2 months of coverage can be excluded.

Third, if you think you guys will end up with a refund, just file an extension and wait. If you think you will owe or have no idea either way then I would consider filing using the numbers you calculated out. Those should be closer to your W-2 when it is corrected.

Engineer Lenk posted:

I'm pretty sure the answer to my question is to find a professional, but I'm pissed off that this information isn't available anywhere:

I was divorced in a community property state during 2015. According to pub 555 and my state law, that means that part of the year has community income and should be reported as such. I can't figure out how to report an adjustment to income and withholding - form 8958 looks like it only applies to people who are married filing separately.

You're gonna want to find an accountant in your state because I cannot figure out how to show that for IRS use. There are probably tax forms through your state that may clarify things, try searching their website, but this is a surprisingly tough topic to research. You could even try calling the IRS if you don't mind waiting anywhere from a half hour to 2 hours on hold.

Peanut and the Gang posted:

Last year I was able to deduct server expenses off a 1099-MISC form. This year I have the same server costs, but the site made under $600 over the course of the year, so I didnt get a 1099-MISC. Would there be a means for me to deduct those costs, since it was intended as a "small business", but operated at a loss?

Report the income. You don't need a 1099 to report it. Take the costs. If you have clear records that that's what those servers cost, and that they're for business and not personal use then even if the IRS does send you an exam letter in 3 years you should be okay. Abbi is right though, $600 income and thousands of dollars in expenses can be a red flag. If you can back up your deductions there's no reason not to take them.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2016 23:21

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Arthil posted:

So I've asked around a few places but I figure it's always good to get information from multiple sources.

This year I've been having a lot of success with my design work, it's not the most glamorous thing ever. Mainly working with existing assets or creating simple new ones for advertisements through an agency that hires out contractors. I've looked up the general taxes I need to be aware of working independently like this, and have been putting aside 25% of everything I make weekly from the agency. I also put aside 25% from any side work, such as jobs from UpWork or other websites.

I'm going to pay quarterly so that I'll receive a tax return (hopefully) next year. The agency will send me a 1099, however I wouldn't receive one elsewhere except if I might do other contracted work from a company. I understand that the 'quarters' for paying the taxes aren't exact, however I'm just wondering what might be the best way to go about sending the set aside money to the government. I know... most of what I need to for the Federal Taxes I think, though State Taxes are another story entirely.

There is also the possibility of my income simply not being steady over the course of the year. This month felt like a very good one, essentially making all that I did the entirety of last year. But I know things could either become slow and easily have me make half of that in a month, or possibly get even better.

Hopefully this wasn't a post full of loaded questions. It's mostly my trying to get my thoughts clear after getting some guidance elsewhere.

I'm not 100% what you're asking but if you're asking about how to make Estimated payments, you just send Form 1040 ES with a check for however much you want to the IRS. Your state will have a similar system. The tricky part is determining how much to send to the state. Here is a link to the form on the IRS website:

https://www.irs.gov/uac/Form-1040-ES,-Estimated-Tax-for-Individuals-1

If you were in NY I'd tell you to send 5% of your earnings to NY and 20% to the IRS to get to the 25% you've been saving. It's guesswork though. When you do your taxes next year see what happens and adjust your habits.

You seem to be hinting that you're unsure about reporting income from the non agency jobs. Report it. There's no legitimate reason not to. There's nothing special you have to do to report it, just add it all up and stick it in the Gross Receipts line of Schedule C.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2016 18:06

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

AbbiTheDog posted:

Our minimum is almost $500 for return.

What you need to realize is the amount of due diligence, paperwork, and liability your paid preparer has for returns. It's nuts and only gotten worse. Half of this job is CYA.

That's insane, youd charge that much for a 1040 and a Schedule A? Do you just not have clients below upper middle class?

# ¿ Mar 3, 2016 06:50

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

KernelSlanders posted:

If your income is less than $100k and you're not self employed, you're probably wasting your money having someone do your taxes for you.

Don't tell my clients that. Besides, there's enough posts in this thread to show that people can gently caress up the very simplest things.

Edit: I mean, I agree that a lot of people can probably handle their own taxes and TurboTax is good enough for them, but if someone wants to pay me to prepare a 1040EZ I'm going to do it. Peace of mind that someone who thinks about this stuff way more than you is making sure you get filed correctly is worth it to a lot of people, and being able to call me during the tax year if things change and the client has questions is a big part of my value to them. They don't get the right to do that though unless I'm preparing their returns and I'm gonna charge them $100-$125 even though TurboTax is way cheaper for a 1040EZ.

I'm not a CPA though, nor am I the owner of my office so pricing isn't entirely in my hands.

Epi Lepi fucked around with this message at 08:59 on Mar 3, 2016

# ¿ Mar 3, 2016 07:35

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

If you do that, whichever return is processed second should just bounce, they will send you back a notice saying a return has already been filed for this social security number. The thing I'd be concerned about is them thinking there's an attempt being made to steal your identity and file a false tax return which could delay the whole process even further. I have no idea how CA will actually react though, since the numbers will be the same they shouldn't have any reason to look into it. It's hard to predict because who knows what part of the process is looked at by people and what part is done via computers. Or if the people involved have any idea what they're doing.

Did you owe money to either the IRS or state? If not, I'd say just chill out. If yes, give it until April 1st for it to appear in their system and then try E-filing.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2016 20:21

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

credibleDecibel posted:

I purchased a modest investment last year whose behavior when it comes to taxes is a bit unexpected. I received a Schedule K-1 from a commodities-based ETF, which is organized as a limited-partnership; when I record the contents of this schedule in my tax software (TaxAct), it does affect my total tax burden (the investment lost value last year, and, although I did not sell it, it decreased my taxes).

My question: If one owns a share of a limited partnership, are one's gains (and losses) taxed (or deducted) each year, regardless of whether they're realized or unrealized?

This is what my research thus far seems to indicate, but I'd like to confirm, as it (1) may affect my taxes this year, and, (2) if this ETF were to increase in value, would seem to discourage long-term holding of the investment, as one's gains would be taxed each year.

I appreciate any help, and hope that asking this question doesn't go beyond what's appropriate for this thread.

Yes this is correct. While it's still an unrealized transaction to you, the ETF is generating income and losses now and as a partner those must be passed through to you. The profits and losses each year affect your basis in the partnership so when you do sell your ownership figuring out your gain and loss is not just subtracting your purchase price from the sale price. You would subtract your current basis from the sale price. Theoretically if it turned a profit every year that would increase your basis and it would be like taxing you piecemeal on the gain you would recognize if it was a stock that you bought and sold. In practice different tax rates and such make it not so simple.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2016 18:52

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

nosleep posted:

My income is 75-80, not sure how much of a difference that makes. This is my first time having side income and using a 1099. Quick search on google brings up the IRS website and makes it seem like I'm not required to make estimated tax payments. I've technically set aside the money to pay the tax on the income as it all basically went into my emergency fund and paying off some CC debt, but I'm probably still gonna say to hell with that job as it's just not worth the hassle when I have to pay this much. In the future if I do something requiring a 1099 do I need to worry about estimated payments?

Remember that if you have any expenses that go along with this side job you can and should deduct them to bring down the amount of self employment income you're being taxed on.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2016 19:19

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Shout out to the other tax preparers here. Love getting the phone call that goes "If I take my return to H&R Block right now I will get more money back!"

Fine, go, do it, I've got way more work than I have time for as it is, I'm not gonna miss you.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2016 18:56

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

ChineseBuffet posted:

I've been doing a good job at not needing to post in this thread for a few years, but now something has gone wrong. 2015 is the first time that I had to a file a separate return for my son due to his unearned income. His mom and I are married, he lives with us full time and we pay all of his expenses, etc. I paper filed his return several weeks ago with no issue, but my subsequent attempt to e-file a joint return for my wife and me was rejected because

As far as I can tell, this isn't true. I'm staring at my son's 1040 and box 6a is unchecked and he has a total of 0 exemptions. Since I could claim him as a dependent, I don't think he even could claim his exemption. After spending an hour on hold with the IRS I was advised to paper file our return and include a note explaining the situation, but TurboTax tells me that nobody will read it and that I should just paper file with no explanation. Presumably then the IRS will then paper reject me via form letter and we can go from there.

Any suggestions on what the lowest-hassle way to get this resolved is likely to be? I don't particularly need the refund soon but don't enjoy having this hanging over my head.

If you're absolutely sure you didn't file him claiming himself then it may just be a coincidence that this is happening when you filed a return for him. You may be dealing with an identity theft situation. In which case you're gonna want to look into Form 14039.

# ¿ May 7, 2016 00:23

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

sullat posted:

That's the IRS for you. They don't distinguish between ID theft dependent fraud and regular dependent fraud when it comes to resolving the situation.

That's not the issue though, he's not saying that someone else claimed the kid, but that someone filed a return with the kids social as the primary taxpayer social AND that person took the exemption for the kid. Unless I misunderstood something.

I mean there's a specific part of the 14039 that is explicitly for parents filing on behalf of a dependent.

# ¿ May 13, 2016 18:38

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Send them proof that you actually paid the amounts as opposed to the 1098-T which just says that you were billed that much.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2016 07:05

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

AbbiTheDog posted:

It might also be the case of the tax preparers requiring positive communications from the client that yes, the client will be using the tax preparer this year, in order for the tax preparer to file an extension for the clients.

For us, the IRS extension is pretty easy to do (check a box, click a button, and efile it) but for us the hassle is the state minimum tax payment and explaining to the clients that no, this tax is not new, no, it's not our fee for the extension, and yes, you need to pay it every year and have done it for the last five years at least.

Add in "no this isn't because of Obama" and I think that hits all of them. Extension time is super super fun!

# ¿ Jul 21, 2016 21:02

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Are there any other tax preparers in here who have clients who are musicians? Can you PM me if so, I have some questions and I'd rather not shout them to the void.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 18:04

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

AbbiTheDog posted:

As in "play gigs at the bar," "trying to sell some CDs out of a guitar case on the sidewalk" or "I'm on a multi-state tour" kind of musician?

He's a rap musician who says hes opened for one or two bigger players, done shows but I don't know exactly how many. I do know he's formed an LLC and has paid out the rear end to record the masters for his EP, way too much to just expense, but the rules about capitalizing sound recordings are confusing me.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 19:08

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Lord of Garbagemen posted:

Dont have any musician clients but for my own curiosity does it fall under IP rules? If so you could set the life based upon usefulness.

Pretty much my only resources that I have found have been this essay from 2007; http://www.howlandtax.com/articles/cdcosts.htm; and the Entertainment Audit Technique Guide on the IRS website: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/entertainment-audit-technique-guide.

Both reference a Safe Harbor provision for capitalizing a sound recording, but the essay says you just have to file your return with "Three-Year Safe Harbor Adopted Under The Provisions of Notice 88-62" at the top of Form 1040, Schedule C, Page 1 and the Audit Technique Guide says you have to request permission to use this provision. The first option is easier, though it makes it that we can't electronically file this return, but it's from 2007 and I can't actually find the Notice that it refers to to see if there has been a revision.

If the ATG is correct, which it probably is, I've never had to seek permission from the IRS to use a provision before so I don't know how that works or how to do so.

It's all very tricky since there's a good chance the IRS will just say it's a hobby gently caress you, even though the guy is pouring tens of thousands into this venture, is making sure his lawyer copyrights all his music, etc etc.

Honestly before I started digging into this I thought it would just be an Intangible Asset amortized over 15 years.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 21:18

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Droo posted:

Essentially only if you get audited, and the IRS doesn't have the resources to audit many people any more. I only reimbursed myself out of the HSA once, and I just made sure the keep the medical bill/receipt showing other payment method in my tax folder in case it ever comes up in the future (I doubt it ever will).

This doesn't stop them though. Which just leads to audits taking over a year to be resolved.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2016 20:06

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Xandu posted:

Am in New York State. I paid them $374 back in April and filed for an extension. Just paid it last month and then got a letter in the mail saying

Looking through the rest of the letter it says

I'm skeptical Turbo Tax was off by that much, but I'm not going to dispute it. I'm just a little confused what it means when they say "we settled your account." Do I still owe them money? It didn't include anything about how to pay, just how to contact them if I disagreed.

edit: Now if I look further down it says
code:
Total payments and refundable credits $1,441.00
Overpayment 			      $0.00
Subtotal 			      $0.00
So maybe I don't owe them anything?

Tried to send you a PM but your box is full. Based on what you've posted you don't owe them anything but if you were expecting a refund it's not coming.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2016 21:34

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Federal Refunds are not taxable so I don't really know what you are talking about.

Personally if I was your preparer and I actually made a mistake I would reimburse you the interest, but not refund you your fee. I still had to do the work to prepare the return, it still cost me money to use my e-filing service, my tax software, etc.

If the reason I wasn't able to prepare the return properly is you didn't give me all of the information I needed to know and I had no way to know I was missing the information then I would have to say sorry, but I can't refund you.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2016 22:39

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Lord of Garbagemen posted:

The firm I work for would likely pay your penalties and interest in a situation like yours. It seems a little harsh to go after the prep fee as you still needed the return done.

As far as whos fault it was , thats between you and the CPA.

Also Epi, i just looked at the Iowa return they have a section for federal taxes addition and subtraction. Never done an IA filing but that seems quite odd.

Yeah I've never done an IA return either, I'm based in NY, have some out of state clients but none from that state.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2016 01:52

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

People need to remember you don't need a lawyer or even an accountant to talk to the IRS. You just need patience, because if you call them you will wait an hour on hold and if you write them it will take weeks for them to respond. That sucks, but a professional doesn't make either of those things happen sooner.

Three-Phase just chill and wait till you receive something from anyone before doing anything. If you get the check, report it. If you get the 1099, report it, and contact the people who sent it and find out where your check is. If you get a letter from the IRS, send one back saying you never received the payment, then contact the people who are supposed to send you the check and see who gets back to you first. If you get nothing then just live your life until you do.

If you're worried about how long its taken to get the check stop thinking about taxes and 1099s and just go try to find out where your money is.

# ¿ Nov 20, 2016 07:21

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Three-Phase posted:

That sounds like a drat good approach. Curious - do you recommend writing or calling if you have a choice, or does it really depend on the circumstances?

$300 isn't that much... I read that for a significant tax understatement you need to have the larger of a $5000 understatement, or an understatement of more than 10% of your taxes. Keyword there is LARGER.

That is accurate. If they hit you with anything it will be a failure to pay penalty and some interest. Failure to pay is only .5% per month up to 25% of the tax owed.

I generally write letters first when responding to IRS notices for clients. I will call to see if I can get status updates or confirm that correspondence was received but any actual arguments are done with letters. At my office we like to have a hard copy of our attempts to resolve the issue with the IRS to refer to in future correspondence. Depending on the response or lack there-of we will either send another letter or call in.

I hate talking on the phone so this works out for me.

# ¿ Nov 20, 2016 08:03

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Payroll isn't my forte so I don't know how easy or hard this will be to sort out. Off the cuff this is probably what I would do if a client asked thought there payroll company hosed up and needed help figuring out what to do.

Compare what he sent to what he reported on the payroll forms that were submitted. So look at the actual 941s and whatever your state forms are. If the forms show the numbers that you were supposed to have had then theoretically you will have credits on your account. If the forms show the inflated numbers then I would guess you would have to try to submit amended returns to that your account will be accurate and again, theoretically turn the overpayments to credits.

Payroll isn't the simplest thing but if he doesn't have a good explanation for how he made this mistake I would definitely be in favor of switching who handles your payroll.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2016 07:47

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

PuTTY riot posted:

My wife got short term disability pay when she was on leave. Didn't realize there was another form for that and that it was a third party deal. Man. Really getting owned by filing early this year. Oops.

Yeah once you're an adult it's never really smart to file before the end of January. My firm has a couple clients who swear up and down they have everything and they can file and then OH WAIT I JUST GOT THIS 1099 WITH THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS OF STOCK TRANSACTIONS IS THAT GONNA CHANGE MY RETURN??

# ¿ Jan 28, 2017 00:26

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

fyallm posted:

Just did a first attempt at fileing my taxes and this is the first time in my whole life it says I owe. My wife and I filed jointly last year (1st year of marriage) and got a decent amount of money back. We both got new jobs and it looks like on our w4 we both put down 1 as the exemption.... Why in the world would I owe over $3k? I don't have stocks and currently have 2 mortgages while waiting for one of the houses to close sale... Should we really change our w4 to both 0?

Go over all your inputs again, maybe you made a typo or left something off. Or maybe you really do owe. There's no way for us to really answer that beyond "maybe?" without looking over all of your documents and for that I'd have to charge you.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2017 18:31

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Niche question, I don't really expect an answer but it can't hurt. I have a client who received a form NYC-1127.2 which states withholding for nonresidents of NYC who worked in NYC for some period of time. I've done these before for clients who work full time in the City but this particular client worked in NYC for literally 12 days. My tax software wants to assess NYC 1127 taxes on him for his full income from all sources, resulting in a fairly large balance due for him. Does this sound right? Am I doing something wrong? I can imagine NYC being lovely enough to tax income that was earned in no relation to them but it certainly seems unfair.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2017 20:15

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Magnetic North posted:

I've done TurboTax for many years because until recently my finances were pretty simple. Last year got more complicated, what with transferring the money out of an old 401k that was being closed, and moving/working out of state for about two months. Long story short, I need to file in three states and much of it is new to me. This make me paranoid every time I take another step in Turbotax that there is some sort of silly exception that will go wrong and I will get in trouble.

So I am considering finding a professional tax service. The thing is that I've only ever heard incredibly bad things about them. Like, used car salesman bad, both about small local places and the big places like H&R Block. (Sorry, MadDogMike. Maybe you can allay my apprehensions?)

How do you find a place that isn't bad and/or how do you know what silly crap to avoid? I don't care about 'maximizing my refund' nearly as much as not getting some sort of penalty.

Honestly the best thing is probably to ask your friends and family where they get theirs done. It's unlikely that all of them do their own taxes so someone should have a recommendation.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 16:50

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

TheEye posted:

I'm married filing jointly and trying to figure out why I owe around $2,300 (according to TaxAct). I've been doing my own taxes for a while, and my wife's since we got married, and this is my first time unexpectedly owing money. Our situation should be really simple: I have a W-2, she has two of them, and we have a few 1099-INTs and a 1099-DIV. That's pretty much it, since we rent an apartment, and as far as I can tell, we have too high of an income to qualify for any deductions or credits. Given how simple this should generally be, should I look into getting confirmation from an accountant, or just assume that TaxAct is correct and pay up?

Also, if anyone else is in New York, what happened to being able to file state tax on the state website? I just went there to file like in previous years, and it looks like that option is gone now. It just says I have to either pay for software or an accountant.

First thing is always double check all your inputs cause typos can make for scary tax days.

Second, yeah your paperwork is relatively simple but is it similar to previous years or did either of you start/end jobs, get raises, any other changes to financial status? All sorts of poo poo can throw your withholding out of wack. Check that 1099-div maybe you got a bunch of capital gains that are throwing you off.

Can't help you about the NY thing, I do live in NY but I am a tax preparer myself so I use software.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2017 18:39

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

SirPhoebos posted:

Was there a major change in the tax rules this year?

I've been filing online with H&R Block. My W-2, Item 1 Income is 37,008 (basically the same from last year), and I have 3,635 in Withholdings (an increase of 100 from last year). But when I entered my info, it said that I owed 1,000 more than last year!

Is that literally all there is to your return? Were you in school last year? If I estimate roughly you should be breaking even, not owing.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 22:09

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Droo posted:

A friend of mine asked me to double check her taxes (after she already filed, of course). She paid a health coverage penalty on line 61.

Any thoughts on whether she could file an amended return to leave line 61 blank (per Trump's EO) and get the penalty back?

No. The individual mandate still exists. The IRS interpreted the EO such that they would not reject any returns that did not confirm the taxpayers health care status in some way. She confirmed that she didn't have it and so must pay the penalty. There's no way an IRS agent is going to accept "Uh actually never mind" as a reason to remove the penalty.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2017 22:33

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Amend now since the IRS will send you a letter soon anyway.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2017 02:50

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Volmarias posted:

How long should I keep my US tax returns for?

I'm doing some spring cleaning and came to realize that I've got many years worth of returns filed away at home. I have no reason to believe that I'd be audited outside of random chance, should I just keep the last 5 years? Last year? Throw it all out once the payment or refund checks clear?

The rule is like 7 years, but the IRS tends to only go back three, but they could go back infinity years if they think there could be fraud so :shrug:

You could always scan them and hope you never lose the hard drive/flash drive you save them to! (You will)

# ¿ Jun 25, 2017 07:33

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Is anyone familiar with reporting income from a Canadian form T5 on a US tax return? Please shoot me a PM if so.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2017 17:12

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Zero VGS posted:

Quick question, I just found out that I can take my $200 MA state refund, and apply it to next year's tax liabilities.

Can I do that multiple years in a row, i.e. rolling over the payment year after year to grow my balance? Reason being that each time I get a $200 refund, MA automatically takes it all to pay down a 20-year old student loan (balance of like $2k) and charges something like a $75 "administration fee" each year as well. But on the years I owe money, they don't take anything. So it makes sense to roll over my refunds for as long as I can in the hopes that in a few years I'll owe a bunch and can then funnel this in.

Thanks, I'll give them a call today.

Won't work, they'll apply it to your balance first and then roll over the excess.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2017 17:13

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

AbbiTheDog posted:

Ultratax. I switched a few years ago from Lacerte due to the massive cost increases and here we go again.

We use CCH Prosystems in my office, it's a good program in my opinion, but I have no idea what our costs are as I just work here.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2018 03:09

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 05:06

Epi Lepi: Oct 29, 2009; You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

black.lion posted:

Speak for yourself

Me on 4/18: and also being socially awkward and failing to make even accidental eye contact

Only on 4/18? That's me from Feb 1 to Tax Day with extra on Mar 15 & Mar 20.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2018 18:51

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > US Income Tax Thread: Bank error in your favor! GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL.

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