How do you file your taxes?

Discussion in 'The Mainboard' started by Merica, Jan 24, 2018.

  1. Bo Pelinis

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    My CPA once saved me several thousand dollars so I figure that’s many years of fees for me to not do the shit.
     
  2. GeneralPaton

    GeneralPaton Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.
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    Same. Two years ago we were gonna owe $1100 and then my CPA did her work and we got $1500 back
     
  3. bigred77

    bigred77 Well-Known Member
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    Sounds to me like your cpa actually made themselves several thousand
     
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  4. CUAngler

    CUAngler Royale with Cheese
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  5. dukebuckeye

    dukebuckeye I’m OK with your low opinion of me.
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    I got $18,000 back last year and was chastised on here for it.
     
  6. Bo Pelinis

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    That’s because that’s fucking idiotic
     
  7. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    correct
     
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  8. Name P. Redacted

    Name P. Redacted I have no money and I'm also gay
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    Lol what the fuck
     
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  9. dukebuckeye

    dukebuckeye I’m OK with your low opinion of me.
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    Wow you guys are still mean.
     
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  10. dukebuckeye

    dukebuckeye I’m OK with your low opinion of me.
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    Yeah, the neatest part is that it’s actually the full amount. They don’t tax it again!
     
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  11. Handcuffed

    Handcuffed A Succulent Chinese Meal
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    I've always used TurboTax (except for one year where I bought my place + moved states and traveled a bunch for work and went to a random H&R Block person) because $300 is ultimately nothing. But I'm going to try FreetaxUSA this year as reddit says it's... free.

    It's really crazy that the IRS doesn't have a better/free tool. I'm just going to assume that's because of lobbying efforts and be upset about it.
     
  12. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    You're correct.
     
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  13. Oranjello

    Oranjello Well-Known Member
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    Accurate. TurboTax was almost successful in abolishing public efile too (or something like that). Don’t remember specifics, but they lobbied for and almost revived a monopoly on efiling
     
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  14. Jimmy the Saint

    Jimmy the Saint The future is a benevolent black hole
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    The government appreciates your interest free short term loan.
     
  15. dukebuckeye

    dukebuckeye I’m OK with your low opinion of me.
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    Just doing my part as an American citizen.
     
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  16. momux

    momux AFAM Scholar
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    What a windfall. How'd you spend all that extra money?
     
  17. dukebuckeye

    dukebuckeye I’m OK with your low opinion of me.
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    I didn’t really do much with it. Saved some, invested some, paid additional on my mortgage, etc.
     
  18. Name P. Redacted

    Name P. Redacted I have no money and I'm also gay
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    Mechanical penis
     
  19. Homo Erectus

    Homo Erectus The important thing is, you think I'm attractive
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    Is it just like a mechanical pencil?
     
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  20. lfriend

    lfriend Well-Known Member
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    Is this another way of saying that you plan to suck his dick for tax services?
     
  21. sc_chant

    sc_chant Be A Dog
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    Grandma is a retired accountant so I just give her everything
     
  22. 941Gator

    941Gator TMB's resident beach bum
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    She still pays the prohibition tax!
     
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  23. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    first year having to file the nondeductible IRA contribution form and it requires a higher paid version of turbo tax

    THIS IS BULLSHIT
     
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  24. Handcuffed

    Handcuffed A Succulent Chinese Meal
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    i did freetaxusa over the weekend and it's like $8 dollars. highly recommended.
     
  25. Name P. Redacted

    Name P. Redacted I have no money and I'm also gay
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    First draft says I get $3500 back so that’s nice
     
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  26. Cottonseed

    Cottonseed Member

    I always fight the urge to cheat my taxes.... not by a lot, just a couple thousand. That way if I get caught I just pay it back plus the interest or whatever they may charge. This is because I never get anything back and I see how much I pay and it makes me sick.

    I think the chances of getting caught are extremely low. It's like, a casino, except you have the house odds.

    But then I turn into a huge puss and don't.
     
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  27. Iron Mickey

    Iron Mickey a guy who posted here like five years ago hates me
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    Angrily and with much resentment that I pay more than massive companies like Amazon and Netflix.
     
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  28. tjosu

    tjosu This is kind of like the breakfast club, huh?
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    Get to Credit Karma; I trust you're smart enough to be able to handle it
     
  29. bigred77

    bigred77 Well-Known Member
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    $8 is not free
     
  30. Redav

    Redav One big ocean
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    Freedom isn't free. It costs a buck o five
     
  31. Snakes

    Snakes clumsy interloper
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    yeah i mean it's an extra like $150 for me. really not that big of a deal. and i have done Turbo Tax for years and it takes a heck of a lot longer than 15 minutes.
     
  32. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    Will check it and this freetaxusa thing out.
     
  33. Jimmy the Saint

    Jimmy the Saint The future is a benevolent black hole
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    Credit Karma is actually free.

    They have some things that are not supported (jorge has told me he can't do city returns) but I think for most people who are only doing federal and a state or two it should work.
     
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  34. Oranjello

    Oranjello Well-Known Member
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    You're doing it wrong
     
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  35. dukebuckeye

    dukebuckeye I’m OK with your low opinion of me.
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    Nothing wrong with a little surprise bonus, IMO.

    What would you guys suggest as someone that is heavily bonus compensated do? I currently deduct more throughout the year because I generally don't need all of that money at that time and I don't want to owe when it comes to tax season. Just so happens that the last couple of years I've paid a lot more than I needed to over the course of the year, which shows in giant returns.
     
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  36. Name P. Redacted

    Name P. Redacted I have no money and I'm also gay
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    nah. last year I owed three grand, I'd rather have a refund than $30 in interest I could've earned.

    that said, I will adjust my withholdings to try and get it under a grand for 2020.
     
  37. Name P. Redacted

    Name P. Redacted I have no money and I'm also gay
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    how much do you pay
     
  38. Name P. Redacted

    Name P. Redacted I have no money and I'm also gay
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    Kansas State WildcatsSeattle Kraken

    Having a non-stable paycheck would make this a pain in the ass. I would imagine by now you have the ability to guesstimate your yearly income; you can look up your tax liability based off that and constantly adjust your withholdings.
     
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  39. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    i moved everything to credit karma and my state refund went down $200 from turbotax

    then credit karma crashed when I tried to figure out why
     
  40. Cabs

    Cabs eatin' fried okra with Oprah
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    H&R Block is free and worked for me. Same amount as what I would have gotten if I had done it through turbo tax
     
  41. tjosu

    tjosu This is kind of like the breakfast club, huh?
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    Can't speak much to the state thing, but I will say one of my few complaints about credit karma is that in the past, some of the input screens were not as intuitive as I'd like to see for people that are not tax professionals. I remember having an issue getting my HSA form 8889 to populate correctly; took me a while to find a box I needed to check that was not very clear and it corrected the issue. I could see your issue being something similar, ie it is including some investment income/excluding a deduction (or something similar) from the state return because of an unchecked box
     
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  42. Jimmy the Saint

    Jimmy the Saint The future is a benevolent black hole
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    Tax filing services are, and will be, a racket.
     
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  43. tjsblue

    tjsblue I was right at the time
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    Give me the float to work with. 9k average year and this year with the market being up 20%? Or used it earlier in the year on mid year hookers. Tax season hookers are always used up.
    Just take the average of your total liability over the last three years and write the number down. If nothing changes as the year goes on with where you are ending up, target paying that amount and do the math with the amount withheld. Taxes don’t change year over year unless you make some kind of wild life change. If you get paid more, apply 25%/35% to the additional amount depending on the bracket you are in. 1-5k isn’t going to kill you, but 10-20k a year over a lifetime is just giving money away out of laziness. Hell it is even substantial if you put more towards your mortgage earlier every year like you said you did anyway. You probably gave away 2k this year by not investing it the market. Over 10 years if you did that ever year and didn’t take the snowball of compounded interest you’re giving up 30k+ in every decade in modern history. Mortgage math would be 15k probably over 10 years if you don’t have a huge mortgage with the mortgage interest law change. Get the snowball going. One year isn’t going to be life changing. 10 years is going to be a nice chunk of change.
     
    #144 tjsblue, Feb 23, 2020
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2020
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  44. dukebuckeye

    dukebuckeye I’m OK with your low opinion of me.
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    I appreciate the input. I’m meeting with my accountant at the end of March and I’ll talk to him about it. By my math I overpaid by 16k last year before factoring in any deductions.
     
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  45. pearl

    pearl Fan of: White wimmens feet
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    H&R Block because I r stupid
     
  46. hood b. goode

    hood b. goode with the mandem
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    me too

    [​IMG]
     
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  47. Talking Head

    Talking Head The Bag Man
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    $18k is probably too much but I’d much rather loan the government $3-5k and get that back than be surprised by having a payment due.

    $3k between 26 paychecks is nothing and it would just disappear into the day to day budget if I pocketed it. I’d rather have the $3k in lump to pay off something at the beginning of the year.
     
  48. BrickTamland

    BrickTamland You're not Ron...
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    Isn't the exact point of having a zero-sum budget?
     
  49. pearl

    pearl Fan of: White wimmens feet
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    Getting back $369 total. Did I do it right?