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Sometimes I wonder about TurboTax. It seems like a reasonably common situation is to have a federal tax-exempt fund, and then part of that fund is actually from your state so it is also state tax-exempt. And the brokerage gives you a little insert with your 1099 that says "1.9% of the income of fund X is from state Y". So Turbotax pretty much provides no guidance on this at all, and just says "enter the amount for every state" (all 50 of them, really?) or you can unknowingly put in "multiple states" and pass up a few bucks on your state income tax. And even better, their fancy direct data import doesn't pull in this data, so it comes up as an error on final review. I had to break out Excel to figure out my numbers, which kind of defeats the point of tax software in my opinion. Just venting, I guess... are the pro packages better at this kind of thing?
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Feb 22, 2012 18:11
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CT made their sales tax rate more complex this year, with an increase on July 1st and a "luxury" tax rate for expensive jewelry and clothing. So now people have to lie four times on the 1040 when they fill out that they owe no use tax. And yet I still don't see how it would benefit anyone to pay it, unless you were planning to run for office at some point. Here is the "we are serious" bolded part of the instructions: quote:If no Connecticut use tax is due, you must enter “0” on Form Although rereading that, shouldn't that be "Failure to file a use tax return OR to remit use tax due"? smackfu fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Mar 5, 2012 |
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Mar 5, 2012 16:38
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In the past that would mean the IRS assumes you got the shares for $0 and now owe capital gains on the entire selling price immediately after try get around to sending you a notice. In theory, now that they get cost basis from the brokers they should be less insane... But they still want their money.
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Mar 6, 2012 02:49
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That's pretty smart of them to go after the big cargo companies. I bet a $800 desk is small potatoes for them.
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Mar 22, 2012 23:46
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Bonuses are supposed to be withheld at 25%. So that was wrong by the employer. The capital gains is just life. It would be interesting if the new cost-basis reporting eventually leads to withholding on capital gains. Probably not since they would have to revers the withholding on capital losses.
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Mar 23, 2012 15:24
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Dominoes posted:I did that two years ago. I got a letter a year later stating that I owed the IRS $12,000 based on $50,000 of income. I had really only made a few thousand dollars. The IRS did the math themselves, and counted each sale as income without deducting the purchases. I got it sorted with a letter explaining their mistake and the total values.
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Mar 26, 2012 16:29
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Willsun posted:It's been a while since I did my taxes on my own but I've still made less enough to file for a 1040EZ. However, since the last time I did it back around 2006 or so, I remember having to send them off to 3 different places for federal/state/local. This time around, all I'm finding is just the one address that seems to be just for federal, or is that address for state? Do I now just send everything to that one address or am I magically not finding the other addresses? The California state tax info is over here: https://www.ftb.ca.gov/index.shtml?disabled=true I'd suggest trying to do their online filing because it's free and easy and saves you a stamp.
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Mar 29, 2012 23:51
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I read somewhere that taking the annuity is much better from a tax perspective, but not sure if that is true.
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Mar 30, 2012 04:28
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Kwik posted:So when I (don't) win half a billion bucks in the Mega Millions tomorrow night, what sort of tax issues should I be on the lookout for? I'm thinking establishing residency in a state with no income tax would be a good first step, ASAP. I'm not sure how well that would work, but I would definitely explore it. Kwik posted:If someone wants to crunch the numbers, right now the jackpot is estimated to be 540 million, though it's probably going to grow based on sales (figure that on Wednesday, the initial estimate was a 476 million jackpot. I'm thinking we're gonna settle in somewhere in the 580-600 million range.) If there is only one winner, their option is either a lump sum payout of somewhere around 390 million, or 26 annual payments of around 21 million. Of course, if there is more than 1 winner, then the pot starts getting divvied up. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Avgl73A7ZcthdGNjRFNYMFFqNnlKMjRQSGRJbDNWVXc Assuming this is right, it looks like the only important variable is investment return rate (modified by capital gains tax rate). If you can get over 3.65% returns, you should take the lump sum. Under, you should take the annuity. smackfu fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Mar 30, 2012 |
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Mar 30, 2012 15:47
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NancyPants posted:When states charge penalties for not filing/paying on time, the penalty is a percentage of what's owed, right? But it also sounds like the $50 is at their discretion, and you can also request to get the penalty waived.
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Apr 22, 2012 19:23
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I think he wants one wrongly done paycheck for this year to be fixed before tax filing time. I don't think that is possible.
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May 1, 2012 18:34
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Mandalay posted:In fairness, Turbotax does the same thing with state e-filing and (god forbid) extra states. The actual software package was like $40 "with a free state" but purchasing another state and efiling two state returns is like $100 on top of that $40. I will use the Turbotax free state, but I just print it out instead of e-filing and re-enter the numbers on my state's web site for free. Funny thing is that TT must be using different rounding rules or something since it's always off by $1 in calculating the tax.
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May 7, 2012 18:39
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kaishek posted:How can they justify this? Either they are terrible at pricing their product or terrible at controlling costs.
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May 22, 2012 20:03
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Moved in with girlfriend who owns her condo. I am paying half of expenses. Does this count as rental income to her? Would it matter if I just paid all the utilities instead of paying part of mortgage?
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Oct 15, 2012 00:00
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Can someone explain why the mileage rate for health expenses is different and much lower than the rate for business expenses? I would have thought the cost to use a car for a mile would just be a single number. Is it not covering depreciation or something?
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Feb 5, 2013 14:49
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This year I decided I should minimize my refund, so I filled out the withholding calculator like a good taxpayer last March, and it told me to deduct an extra chunk of money each paycheck. Did my taxes today, and realize the withholding calculator doesn't ask about carryover capitol losses, of which I have quite a bit from when the market was terrible a few years ago. My refund ended up being about a grand, which is worse than before I messed with things. I know some people like a refund, but I'd rather just have the money as I earn it, thanks. So... watch out for that.
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Mar 11, 2013 01:16
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shodanjr_gr posted:So I'm paper filing 1040NREZ and I owe appoximately $700. What's the best way to get the money to the government? Send a check with the return or paying online by card? Paying online by card costs money: http://www.irs.gov/uac/Pay-Taxes-by-Credit-or-Debit-Card For a $700 payment, it would be $3 for debit, $13 for credit. I'd mail a check.
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Apr 1, 2013 14:44
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SpelledBackwards posted:This seems rather simple, but I can't get a straightforward answer from searching H&R Block's site or Google re: Roth IRA. H&R BLock is saying I'm not able to contribute any money to my Roth IRA, but that seems plain wrong. It is really simple, which means I doubt any of us are going to be able to help you since it's probably something entered wrong in the tax software. Maybe try figuring out your MAGI on this worksheet: http://www.irs.gov/publications/p590/ch02.html#en_US_2012_publink1000230988 Another option is to have your tax software print out all the worksheets, and look through them to see if you can find an error somewhere.
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Apr 12, 2013 20:38
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I'm curious, is AMT avoidance a real thing, where people might want to spend more money in certain categories in order to avoid AMT and pay less tax overall? I know in normal tax circumstance that usually doesn't work out.
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Oct 28, 2013 13:18
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St. John Coltrane posted:Cross-posting from the musician's thread cause this thread seems like a better place for my question: I've found that the main problem in these situations is the different band members varying feelings on paying taxes on that money at all. A lot of people follow the "it's only income if it's an IRS form" strategy. They really need to work out all the details in advance.
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Dec 8, 2013 16:41
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Ugh, Turbotax moved Schedule D from TurboTax Deluxe to TurboTax Premiere, at least in the online version. Annoying.
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Jan 22, 2014 14:42
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JulianD posted:I was trying to get my feet wet with stocks for the first time this year, and I made only $1.02 from a single sale. I have a form 1099-B, but I'm trying to file my taxes using software, which is now informing me I have to upgrade to a paid edition of the software in order to input that information. I feel like I should still file the form even though it was such a small gain, but it's going to cost $50 to file now. Is there any free software that will support inputting this information? Yeah, that sucks. The tax software companies pick fairly arbitrary divisions between their levels. And yes, do file the form, because it's really easy for the IRS to check those numbers against your return. TaxAct's free online option does say it includes the capital gains form, so that might work for you: http://www.taxact.com/taxes-online/free-online-tax.asp?s=OLSTD BTW, I wonder if the IRS will let more small gains slide now that they now the basis for a lot of stock transactions. Before they would assume any $1000 sale was a $1000 gain and treat it like a major issue, but if they know it's only a $1 gain now...
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Jan 31, 2014 18:16
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The concept is that if you give more to the charity than the fair market value of what you receive, the excess is a charitable contribution and therefore deductible.
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Feb 15, 2014 22:54
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I think turbotax is trying to figure out if you are self employed. "A trade or business is generally an activity carried on for a livelihood or to make a profit and conducted with continuity and regularity." If not, then you don't have to pay self employment tax. Just a theory though... smackfu fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 11, 2014 04:09
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Happiness Commando posted:Something seems very wrong about that. First of all, my witholdings for this paycheck are way more than they were for last paycheck on a percentage basis. Second of all, if current witholdings continue, I'll have just short of $10,000 withheld. That seems ridiculous. I want to only ask my boss as a last resort because he hates dealing with anything vaguely related to HR. Any thoughts? Does t Yeah, this case will pretty much always have the wrong withholding. The withholding is based just on what you made this pay period, and assumes you made the same amount in every other pay period this year. If you don't adjust it, you'll get a big refund this year, but next year you won't.
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Jul 15, 2014 19:23
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Droo posted:From what I've seen, people are pissed because either this year or last year they moved all schedule D support into a higher tier version. So someone who has used TurboTax Deluxe for 10 years all of a sudden has to buy Premier, even though they have basically the same tax filing. Along those lines, have the number of CP2000 notices for capital gains gone down now? It used to be that if you forgot to include a stock sale, they would assume the purchase price was $0 and the sales price was 100% gain, which tended to create ludicrous tax liabilities. Now they know the purchase price, so they don't need to go after people with a net loss or where the fund price is fixed.
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Jan 9, 2015 17:14
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How convenient that the home office use went from a few minutes a day to 12-16 hours a week.
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Jan 30, 2015 13:57
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potatoducks posted:Nah, nothing like that. I use it all the time for work related purposes, but usually on nights and weekends. Ah, that makes it sound much less like a scam. The original post made it sound like you had a spare room in your house and wanted to do the bare minimum to make it count as a home office for tax purposes.
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Jan 30, 2015 14:49
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Droo posted:If I were you, I would dig out your two W2 forms from 2012 (was that the last year you didn't owe?) and compare them to now. If you suddenly owe money AFTER buying a house, then something either changed or something is wrong. I would guess that you or your wife changed withholding exemptions like 3 years ago and just forgot about it, and that would be really obvious by comparing your W2 forms for the last few years. Another option is to take both 1040 forms and compare them. That would let you see which lines changed, rather than just comparing the last line on each form that lists what is due.
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Jan 30, 2015 16:04
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New Leaf posted:So I just need to have them hold like $40 a check or something? $1200 is $50 per check, but yeah, that's the basic idea. Of course, you could just put that $50 in the bank instead of having the government hold on to it. You owe the taxes you owe, the details of when you pay them is less relevant.
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Jan 30, 2015 16:55
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pig slut lisa posted:I thought I saw this discussed earlier in the thread, but I can't find anything about it so here goes: Avoid anyone in the Free File Alliance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_File_Alliance
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Feb 3, 2015 21:43
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Droo posted:Well Turbotax just sent out yet another apology email, and they have apparently given in on their bullshit versioning change this year. So anyone who already bought the 2014 Premiere version because the Deluxe wouldn't do their taxes is still out the extra money, right? Oh, I guess they do give you money if you used 2013 Deluxe. That seems ok.
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Feb 5, 2015 23:28
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Scottrade seems to wait until the deadline each year. Does it really take six weeks to issue a 1099B? Vanguard just likes to issue supplemental forms after I submit my taxes. Like I check for my 2014 forms, and see a form from 2013 that I never saw before. Oops.
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Feb 6, 2015 20:17
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You can subtract up to $3000 of overall stock losses from your other income each year, which would get you back $500 or so (since you already withheld taxes on that $3000). If you lost more than $3000, you can carry over the excess to future years.
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Feb 14, 2015 14:10
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File state now, federal in April.
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Feb 18, 2015 18:48
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silvergoose posted:Pretty sure taxact asks, at least. The other reason to ask is to let you know if you contributed too much.
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Mar 6, 2015 14:12
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Ron Don Volante posted:This is my first year filing taxes, and I have federal income to report from two different companies. The website I'm using predicts your tax return after each form you fill out. After I filled out my W-2 for the first company, my refund was around $3k. After I filled out my second W2, my refund dropped down to $600. Did I do something wrong? I assumed the refund would increase the more income I'm reporting. This makes sense. From the tax software's perspective, the second W-2 is all taxed at a higher tax bracket. But it was withheld at lower tax brackets. So adding it in would decrease your refund.
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Mar 23, 2015 12:45
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Think all the actual tax goons are busy doing people's taxes this week.
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Apr 10, 2015 15:13
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Admiral101 posted:He doesn't have the option of doing that anymore. 2010/2011 are both closed years (assuming he filed on time) and can't be amended. If the carryover wasn't reported on those returns he's not going to be able to report it on his 12/13 returns. So what happens if he just submits those amended returns? Would the IRS pay the refund and then want it back later, or just reject them outright?
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Apr 24, 2015 13:00
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I doubt any number would work well for a side job, since the assumption for the withholding tables is that it is your only job, and a side job's income is going to be in lower brackets and have a lot more of the standard deduction taken out proportionally. Your best bet is to roughly figure out your tax rate and then use that to add in additional dollars of withholding.
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Jan 24, 2016 17:26
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