Taxes taxes taxes

[rubytue]

So has anyone else not filed? I'm really hoping some scammer hasn't tried to file for me already. *sigh*

It's taken the better part of 6 weeks, but we finally have H's pay stub/W2 issue worked out. I should send their bookkeeper lunch for dealing with my bazillion questions. She made the mistake of sending me a spreadsheet to verify the W2 was correct, and I poured over it. I thought I found one mistake (missing paycheck), but turned out to be a different mistake (check dated incorrectly). This was during a bouncing paycheck month, so things were tricky.

And I went through this bc we are $654 over the amount that loses us an exemption in our state. Because it's an exemption, not just a tax bracket bump, it's a $525 different in taxes (and we owe, making it even more painful). Ugh ugh ugh. I'll be pouring over everything one last time to see if I missed a deduction.

[mcsangel2]

I haven't. I *never* wait this long. But work has been a bear, and school has been time consuming.....

I guess now that there's only 2 weeks to the deadline, I can't really put it off any longer.

[v]

I still have my head buried in the sand about it.

But hey -- if a scammer is willing to file the taxes for me, s/he is welcome to do that! No good will come for them from that...

[rubytue]

Apr 1, 2015 20:10:07 GMT -5 v said:

I still have my head buried in the sand about it.

But hey -- if a scammer is willing to file the taxes for me, s/he is welcome to do that! No good will come for them from that...

I wonder about that. I owe a decent amount. If someone filed under my SSN - what do they use? Just make up some stuff? I read about them "stealing refunds." So since I owe, does that make me safe? I don't know. I might be about to fall down that rabbit hole to find out...

[magdala]

We just sent the last of the paperwork to the accountant. If it weren't for some weird trust things with his family, I would have done the taxes myself in February.

[littlemisssunshine]

I'm ignoring taxes as I'll owe over 5K. But hopefully someone will file as me and pay it?!

Hope you find a deduction!

[crashgizmo]

I just filed over the weekend. I completed it back in February, but since we weren't getting a refund I procrastinated.

[rubytue]

I found my answer. They make up crap!

krebsonsecurity.com/2015/03/tax-fraud-advice-straight-from-the-scammers/

[Lilac]

We "did" our taxes, but haven't filed yet b/c we owe $5k I'm waiting until April 14th... I also made DH change his withholdings. We'll be in much more neutral territory next year.

[imojoebunny]

We owe more than we made some years... Not in a rush.

If someone messes with our socials and the IRS, it sounds like your pretty much screwed, since they have no liability and no desire to fix it. It was heart breaking watching the show about the "dead people" that SS reported. One poor woman ended up homeless. They closed all her accounts, wouldn't give her the money, thought she was committing fraud, and had her arrested. Nope, SS just fat fingered a dead persons social. Meanwhile... They pay people for 20 years who ARE dead.

[craftyone]

We don't file until at least September. My husband has equity in his company and since his company waits to do their taxes, we usually don't get the K-1s until July or August. Luckily for us we only owe minimal amounts in the various states we file (never more than 20 or 30 bucks inpenalties) plus our tax guy is usually not too busy at that time of year.

[nomad100]

We just got all our tax documents back from the accountant yesterday.

Somehow we only owe the Fed $31. Woot! We owe the state over $1000. Boo!

[craftyone]

Apr 1, 2015 20:14:52 GMT -5 rubytue said:

Apr 1, 2015 20:10:07 GMT -5 v said:

I still have my head buried in the sand about it.

But hey -- if a scammer is willing to file the taxes for me, s/he is welcome to do that! No good will come for them from that...

I wonder about that. I owe a decent amount. If someone filed under my SSN - what do they use? Just make up some stuff? I read about them "stealing refunds." So since I owe, does that make me safe? I don't know. I might be about to fall down that rabbit hole to find out...

I think anyone can file a false return if they have your SSN. I think for the most part the computer programs process your return and send out money. I think people find out later that a return has already been filed and then the identity theft process starts. I'm sure you have to prove you didn't do the return etc etc and file it correctly then you eventually get the monies. I know when we filed in one of the states(we file in 20+ states), I got a letter months later saying we filed in correctly and we owed more money.

[noodleoo]

We haven't done ours yet. I always did mine early but we file jointly now and H has to do it because of his business. No matter how much I nag he always leaves it to the last minute!

[Redpoppy]

I was in a crappy mood tonight so finally did them. I then went and got everything together to apply for a mortgage on our new place. I'm productive when I'm mad.

[lime]

We file our business and personal taxes on April 15th. H prints them out and drops off a check at a post office at 11:59 PM, which usually necessitates a trip across town to find an open one. (You know, like people used to do in the 50s.)

It is worth noting that H is a software engineer and an early adapter on ALL things tech related.

For some reason, this is his hill to die on. So I don't push on it. But, it drives me nuts.

[rubytue]

Apr 1, 2015 21:48:34 GMT -5 lime said:

We file our business and personal taxes on April 15th. H prints them out and drops off a check at a post office at 11:59 PM, which usually necessitates a trip across town to find an open one. (You know, like people used to do in the 50s.)

It is worth noting that H is a software engineer and an early adapter on ALL things tech related.

For some reason, this is his hill to die on. So I don't push on it. But, it drives me nuts.

Ha! I use to be like that. Not that many years ago even. I'd do them with turbo tax, but print and file. I loved the excitement at the post office that night. They'd give out candy sometime lol

Eta: it was as late as the early 00s. Not quite 50s

[AAM2012]

Apr 1, 2015 20:10:07 GMT -5 v said:

I still have my head buried in the sand about it.

But hey -- if a scammer is willing to file the taxes for me, s/he is welcome to do that! No good will come for them from that...

I wait to the last minute to file because I hope someone will do it before me

I meant to call and pay my accountant today so they could file for us but didn't have time so hopefully I'll be able to do it tomorrow. We owe the feds $3400 and get an $800 refund from the state.

Side note and somewhat related to all the scammers. I was really pissed with my new accountant when I came home yesterday to a large stuffed envelope in my mail that was clearly from a tax company (large return logo) with a copy of my 2014 filings and my 2013 filings that I had provided them. Had they told me they were going to mail it (via usps) I would have gladly ran by and picked it up myself on the way to work.

[lime]

Also, does anyone remember this Simpsons?






Kent Brockman: Sir, uh, why did you wait until the last minute to pay your taxes?

Krusty the Clown: Because I'm an idiot! Happy?

Kent Brockman: [back to the camera] Of course not everyone is an idiot.

[LoveTrains]

arch01 had a tax fraud issue a few years ago. Someone else filed with her H's SSN iirc. I'm sure she could tell us what happened. I just remembered it was a PITA.

[rubytue]

Out of curiosity, I logged in to the irs tax transcript site. I could get in just fine and there was no tax filing for me for 2014. So I think I'm good.

H, otoh, *sigh* I couldn't get logged in to him irs account. I want to say I had this problem last year, too, when I was dealing with his w2 issue. But if not, it's not a good sign. Ah well. We shall see this weekend.

[aurora]

We haven't filed yet since we owe. But, we're thrilled that we only owe ~1/3 what we thought we might. Yeah for finding out about another (legit) deduction!

[starlily]

I just filed over the weekend. I'm getting a decent refund, which I know isn't MM-approved, but I didn't want to mess around with getting to figure out what adjustments to make while I was on maternity leave last year.

No more babies for us, so this is very likely the last refund ever. I usually break even or owe slightly.

[lurknomore]

I haven't. I finally did them this weekend. Kid #3 kicked us into AMT land. We made about $500 too much. I tried playing around with taking out some of our deductions (charitable contributions etc) but it doesn't seem to matter. We are still getting bavk a small amount from federal and owe about the same to state and local. So we will break even. It could be worse but I'm still annoyed about owing AMT.

[Deleted]

AMT sucks.

We owed the feds a LOT but only had to pay MD 15 bucks. Maybe with Larry Hogan in office that gets even better next year....maybe....

[Deleted]

Apr 1, 2015 20:23:53 GMT -5 rubytue said:

I found my answer. They make up crap!

krebsonsecurity.com/2015/03/tax-fraud-advice-straight-from-the-scammers/

That article is kind of enraging. I want to crawl through my computer and strangle that guy. I can't imagine filling out bogus tax returns as a full time job. Like all day, just fucking up lives all willy nilly. What a complete piece of shit.

But no, I haven't filed yet either. I've never waited this long, but I've also never owed this much. Denial.

[konapoppy]

I prepped them over a month ago. This past weekend I finally decided to do my double check and realized I had missed a 1099 with tons of capital gains, adding 4k to our taxes. We ended up owing a little over 11k

It was a terrible way to learn some MM lessons:
- Capital gains are painful. Avoid cashing out long term investments for home and other purchases if possible.
- Contribute to your Roth as early as you can in life.
- If you do a 401k to Roth conversion, have them take out more than 10%
- If you consistently owe when claiming 1 married, adjust your withholdings.

Some times you just have the feel the pain to get it.

[oswin]

We owe and we were held up for a while waiting on a corrected 1099B. We'll be sending them in this week I think.

[oswin]

konapoppy, what's wrong with cashing out long-term investments? Aren't they just taxed at 15%?

[konapoppy]

Apr 2, 2015 6:56:53 GMT -5 oswin said:

konapoppy, what's wrong with cashing out long-term investments? Aren't they just taxed at 15%?

Yes. And if you are smarter than me, you actually calculate that and keep that money separate for taxes. I knew it would be bad, but not this bad. I have learned my lesson. Some of my investments (luckily) did very well, but my focus at the time I sold them was "house house house" not "how can I minimize my tax obligation?". I should have been more cognizant of this and made a few different choices.