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Jd7154 posted:Alright I have kind of a weird situation right now. I already filled out my taxes for both federal and state, took the standard deduction and got my refund. But I was talking to a friend and he gave me some advice and told me I should amend both this year and last years taxes. So heres the story: I don’t know if anyone else wants to take a stab at what you can deduct and what you are eligible for, but H&R Block or for that matter, no professional preparer will be able to pull up your information from Turbo Tax or whatever you did last year and this year. You have a specialized situation, a lot of time could be involved, and I would expect to pay more than $100 for someone to amend these returns. I used to work for Block, and it gets a reputation as the supercuts of tax prep, but there are people there that can handle these returns, but perhaps not in every office, so you will need to call ahead to make sure your situation is properly matched with the skills of the tax professional. My other advice is that they are not as busy now as they will be 3 weeks from now, or 5 weeks from now so get it taken care of now. Or wait until after April 15th . It will be less hectic. You have 3 years to amend this years, 2 years to amend last years.
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Mar 8, 2011 20:32
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Since I wrote most of the OP, I'm going to ask of all things a Turbo Tax question! I zipped through virtually my entire return last night without incident. Everything ground to a halt the moment I had to enter prior year depreciation on my rental. Turbo tax is trying to walk me through calculating my basis. If I know that it is for example $229,947, and I know I am entitled to take lets just say $8362, and I know my prior is $12,195 is there any difference between just saying the original basis is $229,947 and it is used 100% for business? Or do I need to fight with their little wizard thing and put in the original purchase price, additions to basis, the land, the 71.23% that I am renting out, and fight with it until I get $229,947? OR AM I RAVING MAD RIGHT NOW AND NEED TO TAKE A loving HAPPY PILL?!!!!!
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Mar 9, 2011 00:05
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I figured. In a way, it wouldn't matter this year. Form 4562 would be the same either way. But yeah, if I ever converted some part or moved to a different part of the house...I know.
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Mar 9, 2011 05:03
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silvergoose posted:So I'm living with my girlfriend, and I'm providing all of the income. From what I can see, I can claim her as a dependent if: Sounds like she meets all the dependency tests. Filing an amendment isn't that complicated. She is not required to file, so unless there is some reason why she might need to for something else, like if she is going back to school or trying to get some government benefit, there isn't any point.
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Mar 10, 2011 00:48
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Pope Mobile posted:I've got a question about paying what I owe off: You can do a payment agreement with the IRS, but it is so stacked against you, you would do better getting a loan somewhere. You would do better getting a cash advance on a credit card if it came to that.
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Mar 10, 2011 02:28
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furushotakeru posted:I dunno about that, cash advances usually carry a 3% service charge and 30% interest, and even the IRS isn't that draconian. If he wants to pay with a credit card he should just do so - same 3% service charge but ordinary interest rates. Unfortunately that’s probably true in a lot of cases. My primary job is managing the day to day operations of my credit union’s credit card program. We charge 10.25% and no fees for cash advances on platinum. Even our classic isn’t that bad at 14.99%, still no fees. To me that seems high, but I often forget how truly awful a lot of the big banks are.
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Mar 10, 2011 16:10
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Nuja posted:Alright, before anyone starts in on me, I know I'm a loving idiot. With that said, here's what I need a bit of help with. I'm 19, claim myself, yet have shared a bank account with my mother for the past year and a half(We started it when I was still a minor). My girlfriend and I split the bills 50/50 with her, buy our own food, basically just renting out my room. I think you know the answer to your question, but: IRS.gov posted:What will happen if I enter an incorrect routing or account number?
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Mar 15, 2011 14:07
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Gimbal_Machine posted:Here is a question about the Residential Energy Credit: On it's face, it seems illogical that you could take the full $8000 product cost to qualify for the credit when you paid $3500, but it seems you can. Insurance settlements on your personal property are not taxable except to the extent you realize a gain. (ie, you bought the house for $30,000 and they paid you $40,000, 10K is gain). Barring that, it's money and money is fungible. I'm curious if anyone has a different interpretation, but I would take all of it.
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Mar 20, 2011 20:47
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Social Animal posted:I think I'm going to go to an H&R Block for my first non-1040EZ form because I'm just so overwhelmed. Based on my income I believe I can still file 1040EZ however my brother and I have inherited a house the past year and I don't know what to do now. This is probably beyond the scope of this thread. There are new rules in effect that probably mean there will be no taxes owed, but you should think about professional help on this one. My understanding is you are subject to Modified Carryover Basis Rules, which allow you to increase the basis of the house by up to 1.3 million, but there are forms that need to be filled out to make this happen. There are tax preparers at H&R Block who can do this return, but as someone who used to work there, I would venture the majority could not. That means you need to call up some offices and make an appointment with the appropriate person. Ask what documents they want you to bring in. Drop them off. Don't just walk in and take the next available person unless you want a quagmire.
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Mar 28, 2011 23:42
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nnnotime posted:I had a question about estimated tax payments. I trade stocks infrequently (not a daytrader) and can have both gains and losses per month. I've been paying estimated taxes on gains every estimated payment period. But if I have a loss and a gain, do I sum the two together before determining if estimated tax is due? Your losses offset your gains.
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Mar 28, 2011 23:44
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Hillridge posted:This year I received a $6000 rebate from NH for installing roughly 5kW of solar panels on my home. I got a 1099-G from the state listing the $6000 as a "Taxable Energy Grant". I don't know why you are crying about this. You got a check of free money of which only some percentage will be paid as taxes. You get to keep the rest of it. Would you rather not have gotten it? Won't you get a federal energy credit too that will probably be more valuable than whatever tax you pay on $6000 of income?
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Mar 28, 2011 23:47
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Hillridge posted:It's not free money, it's money I got back after paying for everything up front and meticulously keeping records and filing paper work. You're right that I get a nice federal credit too, but I think if the state is going to treat this as grant money, they should call it a grant and not a rebate. No
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Mar 29, 2011 01:59
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intensive purposes posted:Is a taxable student fellowship/stipend "earned income" for the purpose of the Earned Income Tax credit? It seems more like the examples of earned income than the examples of not-earned income listed here, but I'm not sure. The fellowship/stipend income is definitely taxable (confirmed by my school) because receipt of the stipend was conditioned on my completing services (the University paid me a few thousand $ to do an otherwise unpaid public interest internship for a non-university business over the summer)... but they don't generate any tax documentation like a W-2 for it. I'd like to hear other people's interpretation, but to me this almost sounds like self employment. You performed services in exchange for money. Except it just seems weird. Did you have to do this work as a requirement for your degree, or was this an extra side project you picked up to make some extra money? Either way, they should have issued a tax document that would have clarified the nature of the money.
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Apr 2, 2011 16:12
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intensive purposes posted:It was not necessarily a requirement of the degree (JD), but it was certainly related (students are expected to get summer legal jobs even though it's not a requirement). I received the stipend in one lump sum at the beginning of the summer, before my internship began. Here's a link to the program info page: http://www.law.umich.edu/currentstudents/publicservice/funding/Pages/PublicServiceGuarantee.aspx (login required for the FAQ--no, it doesn't address taxes). I read that too, except what you got doesn’t smell like a scholarship or fellowship. I’m not an expert with them, and correct me if I’m wrong, but a scholarship and grant implies that they give you money to assist you with degree requirements. They are taxable to the extent you use the money for living expenses. This feels like more of a regular employer/employee relationship, and they just sent you out to this non-profit to do the work they wanted done. When you were doing the work, did they dictate your schedule, furnish you with all your supplies, line up the cases for you? Did you have a supervisor that you answered to? Also, who paid you? Did I read you correctly when you said the school paid you direct? If this is self employment, it does count towards EIC, but it also counts toward self employment tax. A lot of employers just decide to label everyone as an independent contractor because they don’t feel like paying the taxes and don’t want to do the paperwork/worry about payroll. It seems like this program either doesn’t know what they did or have a clue how to classify the money and just want to pass the buck along to the students and make them figure it out.
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Apr 4, 2011 16:32
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intensive purposes posted:The school paid me directly. I was an intern attorney at a public defender's office, had a supervisor and assigned caseload and office and everything just like the regular attorneys. No money or anything from the PD office, they just verified to my school that they agreed to have me work at least 10 weeks. I didn't have to report hours to my school, and neither did the office. You will still have to pay self-employment tax, even if your income tax is zero. Your standard deduction and personal exemption are not used to reduce your income for calculating self-employment. I wish I was more help in figuring out what the income is. If it is a stipend for doing an unpaid internship, your original assumption that it is a scholarship is probably accurate. You are asking if this is income for calculating EITC. How old are you? If you are 24 or younger, you don't qualify for it anyway.
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Apr 4, 2011 17:12
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intensive purposes posted:Thanks for the explanation of the self-employment tax. I was goggleing a bit more, and found this. If it is considered a scholarship, it does not count as earned income toward the EITC. http://www.wwwebtax.com/credits/earned_income_credit.htm
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Apr 4, 2011 19:46
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poofactory posted:Can collectible gains be offset by capital losses? I have a stock loss that I have been carrying over for a couple years and I want to sell some collectibles at a profit this year. Can I do this? Short answer, Yes. But there is a formula where current gains get applied to current losses first, and then your losses that were carried forward from previous years get used up. Even after the gains are completely offset, you can still take the regular $3000 in losses on top of that, and carry over the remaining until next year.
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Apr 8, 2011 17:25
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AbbiTheDog posted:No longer stickied? For shame, mods. For shame. Fixed. How did that happen? Do we want to have poo poo post icon?
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Apr 11, 2011 00:32
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Mandalay posted:My friend told me that he paid $300 to H&R Block for a 30-minute tax return session. Is this representative of rates out there? I've always self-prepared personal returns. It could be. I used to work for them; they charge per form, not based on how long it took to key in. If his stuff was all lined up, he didn’t ask too many questions, and especially if he was a prior client and his address/phone number and prior forms popped up from last year, an experienced preparer could do a fairly complex return in 30 minutes. They charge more from mid January to about Feb 10th. Then the price goes down until about March 20th, after which they jack it up again. \/\/\/ Zeta Taskforce fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Apr 11, 2011 |
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Apr 11, 2011 20:22
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sonicice posted:At the beginning of this year I started working as an independent contractor. My checks have no taxes taken out of them. Would this be a good time to start using, say, Quicken, to keep track of my expenses and the like? The thought of my tax situation come April 2012 is quite scary to me as I've always just filed a simple 1040EZ or whatever with Turbotax Free. The proper time to start using Quicken to keep track of your expenses was when you started. The next best time is to start now and try the best you can using bank statements and receipts to work back, and update it regularly so it doesn’t ever become overwhelming. Good records will make your life so much easier. I don’t know if there is a “best way” to keep track of your expenses other than to just do it. For mileage, you might want to keep a log in your car. Maybe there is a phone app that does it? I have an old, dumb phone but seems like there is an app for everything else. You might want to have a separate bank account with it’s own checks and debit card you use only for business expenses. FYI, you can count mileage at a standard rate per mile OR the exact costs of gas, maintenance, repairs, etc. NOT BOTH. Most people come out ahead with standard mileage, plus it’s easier. I would consider accounting software to be a valid business expense. You do need to send estimated payments in by April 18th. Its not hard. Just download Form 1040ES and use the voucher on the bottom.
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Apr 14, 2011 17:30
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Insane Totoro posted:I have a quick question. Did you do it pen and paper or did you use software? If you had used software like Turbo Tax, it would be almost impossible to forget to take it. If you used pen and paper, then like werdnam said, a 1040X is in your future. It is not that hard to amend a return.
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Apr 19, 2011 04:47
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Kirtan posted:Question that's been hounding me for a couple years, that I was reminded of by reading the OP, plus a new issue I originally came here for: The basic procedure would be to complete a non resident return for South Carolina, pay taxes to them, and then file as a resident of North Carolina and you get a credit for the taxes paid to South Carolina. I don’t know how Turbo Tax handles this situation, but if this is going to be a reoccurring event and if Turbo Tax keeps bungling it, you might want to do a paper return for the states. For this year, you may want to invest in a tax professional to pick through it. They are not that busy right now. What you tell your job on the W-4 only tells them how much money to sent to the IRS. It does not determine your filing status. I guess you could do it now since your filing status is your marriage status on the end of the year and all the income you are earning this year as a single man will go on the joint return, even though you will be married for only 3 months. I don’t think it will make that much of an impact on your withholding though, so its not urgent that you need to do it today.
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May 19, 2011 16:26
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Eggplant Wizard posted:An English relative left money for me in a fund to which I gained access on my 25th birthday. It's about 7,100 pounds, roughly $11,000 right now according to google. Maybe someone else can take a crack at it, but your questions are probably outside the scope of what is possible in this thread. You may owe taxes on some of this £7100. It depends what assets it is invested in, and if it has gone up or down since the death of your relative. Generally you owe taxes only on the profit and if it has gone down in value you may get tax benefits from the loss. I have zero knowledge of how this will be treated according to the UK tax code, but you may get a credit on your US taxes if some of this is taxed in the UK. As for what to do with it, I would say it largely depends on where you are now. If you have any debt, I would put it towards that first, and if anything is left over add it to your emergency fund so you have 3 to 6 months of expenses set aside. Anything over that I would put into a Roth IRA assuming you have wage income. Either way I would convert it to $ because overall it will way simplify your tax situation not to have foreign bank accounts and since all your expenses are in dollars, you want to have your assets in $.
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Jul 5, 2011 17:28
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about the US' future. But even if we plunge into dystopia, the UK probably wouldn't be much better off.)
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Zewle posted:If I filed as a self employed musician, would I be able to deduct music lessons and classes as business expenses? Considering I don't think I'll be making any kind of profit off music related stuff for quite awhile, would the hassle of incorporating be worth it to be able to have tax deductions when otherwise I'm making about minimum wage? Those sound like legit business expenses to me. You don't need to incorporate to claim them. Many people just use their social security number on their schedule C. If you find that in the course of doing business that you are needing to share your social security number in places you would rather not, you can apply for an EIN, which is also super easy to do.
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Aug 16, 2011 05:18
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Zewle posted:So basically, unless I manage to actually make a profit or some kind, don't try deducting expenses? You are probably a better judge than anyone. If you are training to be a musician and that's it, then no. If you are a degree candidate, then you may be able to claim education credits, but they are not business expenses. But if you are actively putting yourself out there, networking, getting gigs, that is a different story, even if it is still a side project. Professional musicians still may take voice lessons and pay for training. Taking lessons isn't the disqualifier. Not trying to make money at it is. If you are not sure what you are, then keep records of what you are doing and you may need to consult with a tax professional to sort it out.
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Aug 16, 2011 17:42
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WrongWay Feldman posted:Stupid Question: I'm confused. Are you an independent contractor or is he your employer? These are mutually exclusive things. As far as who can deduct the expenses for the supplies, he can since he is the one who ultimately paid for them.
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Aug 17, 2011 01:38
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catman posted:If the 1099-Misc includes the reimbursements then you would take the expenses. If he is going to turn around and send WrongWay a 1099 with these amounts added to it, then yes, you are right. But I have a feeling that this is quasi under the table and no one will be issuing anyone a 1099-Misc.
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Aug 17, 2011 02:52
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I just recently had my front porch on my 2 family property rebuilt. The roof was fine but the foundation and stairs had rotted out from being about 60 years old. The contractors temporarily propped up the roof and ripped everything out, poured a new foundation and built a new porch underneath the roof. The new porch is exactly the same size of the old one. The old porch was beginning to be structurally unsafe. For tax purposes my house is being used 67% for rental and 33% for personal use. This is considered a repair, not an upgrade. Right?
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Aug 11, 2013 21:05
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Rurutia posted:I have a question about side jobs and their impact on deductions. I'm a full time doctoral student with a work stipend. This year, I took on a minor contracting job (about 70 hours for the year). From my understanding, this will be taxed both marginally at the federal income tax level and for an additional 15(?)% for the self-employment tax? You can deduct all legitimate expenses that were necessary to generate this income. Auto related expenses would very much count. Most people find it easiest to track the mileage and take the IRS standard mileage rate of 56.5 cents per mile driven. If you do that, you can't deduct your gas too. A log book or a spreadsheet keeping track of it is fine. I'm not sure about anything else though. To take a home office deduction, the area must be used regularly and exclusively in your self employment venture. Meaning the area is both used quite often for your contracting work and and you don't use it for anything else, you don't use it to study for your tests or write your thesis. I'm guessing a 70 hour contracting gig won't qualify you for the home office deduction. Likewise with the internet. I understand you communicate with the bosses, but how do you separate that part of the internet from looking at the forums? It's not like your contracting work made your internet bill more expensive. Same with your phone. I guess you could figure out the percentage you used it personally vs. contracting, but for a 70 hour thing, again, you are probably better off not counting it. Did you need to buy special software for this project, hardware or equipment? If so, the same concept applies. If you bought a new laptop at the start of it, you will have a hard time proving that you only used it for this 70 hour project, buy maybe you did have to rent a high capacity printer for a month and you burned through a $50 ink cartridge, in which case you just need your receipt.
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Aug 11, 2013 21:25
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scribe jones posted:Yup. I figured,  wanted a second opinion, especially since I get to wait 27.5 years to write off my furnace.
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Aug 12, 2013 01:32
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furushotakeru posted:A furnace doesn't have an expected life of 27.5 years though. I would have used 10 at most. I figured that a replacement furnace, being a capital improvment, became the same class of property that it was installed in. That said, the furnace it replaced was about 70 years old, no joke.
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Aug 12, 2013 17:52
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Rurutia posted:Thanks for all the information. I was mostly asking because I'm looking into expanding my contracting to be a more substantial side business so all of this information is important. I haven't prepared taxes for paying clients for about 4 years, but pretty much everyone who came in had a box of random recipts, their bank statements with 5 months missing, half of them were from the wrong year, no mileage records about anything, and we were just guessing. When you do contracting/self employment stuff, a surprising amount is based on the honor system. Chances you will never be audited, especially if your expenses are in line with what other contractors in the same line of busines take. If this gets to be a regular thing, you can open up a seperate bank account and run all the business transactions through it.
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Aug 12, 2013 18:25
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Zhentar posted:I bought a house this year. My realtor advised me that since my property taxes are due Jan 31st, I can pay them this year or next year, so I should figure out which is more advantageous for income taxes. I'm not really sure what weighs into deciding that, though. Is there anything significant I should consider? The main thing to consider is if you will be itemizing this year or not. It is usually true that homeowners benefit from itemizing; the mortgage interest and property taxes by themselves usually more than exceed your standard deduction. Non-homeowners should still check to see if they benefit from itemizing but it is much less common that they do. Because you bought the house this year, you didn’t pay a full year’s worth of interest and taxes. It could go either way. You might still be able to itemize, especially if you bought earlier in the year, you are a high wage earner in a state with high taxes, and if you give generously to charity. But if you are not going to itemize this year, you should wait until next year to pay the taxes. (You should also wait until next year to make your donations to charity if this applies). Also if you think you will be in a higher tax bracket next year, you can also wait. But if you are itemizing this year and don’t see too much change next year, I would pay it this year to get the benefit when you file in a few months and not wait an extra 12 months to wait for that benefit.
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Dec 24, 2013 17:20
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My Rhythmic Crotch posted:I've been waiting on a $9k refund from the state of Oklahoma since about September, I'm starting to wonder when I will see this money. Does anyone generally know who I should call to figure out what's going on? I used the magic of google to find the Oklahoma Department of Revenue website and I never left my desk to do it. (405) 521-3160 might be a good place to start. Good Luck
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Dec 31, 2013 19:20
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:I'm not doing the work anymore. Have your accountant file an amended return with all dedutable expenses included and pay the amount as dictated by the return
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Jul 14, 2017 15:25
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:The amount I owe is low enough that I don't know if going to an account is worthwhile Its up to you. You see the ratios yourself. Every $1.00 you are able to reduce your income by reduces your taxes a bit more than $0.25. If you had $300 in travel expenses then its probably not worth it, buy the time you pay him/her and take the time to make the appointments, etc. There is probably some threshold where it goes beyond the hassle factor. My point is that you either pay the amount in full on the CP2000 OR you file an amended return and send the amount as directed by the return.
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Jul 14, 2017 16:26
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Which is probably dumb.
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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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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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