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Tax Slackers Check In

IAppreciateIt said:
do you guys just use turbotax? is the free version good enough for itemizing stuff?
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If you are just itemizing normal things like mortgage interest, real estate taxes, personal property taxes, state income tax, charitable contributions, etc. and otherwise have a simple return with W-2 income and maybe some 1099s for interest and/or dividends, the free version is fine. If you have capital gains or Schedule D income/expenses, you don't have access to that with the free version.
 
I have one more family and friends return to finalize and then I can send ours.
 
woot got close to 4k of my own money back from the grubby hands of the idiot government
 
RacerDeac said:
Just had to file an extension...realized at the last minute that we don't yet have a SS# for my son that we adopted in October and it's the difference in thousands of $$ of adoption and child tax credits. Should have done my taxes a month ago and we could have gotten the SS# in time.
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Had to do that for my 2011 taxes. Got the SSN in may, filed (have to mail it in, can't efile). So filed return in may 2012. Just got the refund in the mail this past Monday. Prepare for a long process of sending in lots of paperwork including some things twice.

They require his/her ir3 visa and the adoption decree + all receipts that you are claiming from the credit.
 
IamThunderbolt said:
They require his/her ir3 visa and the adoption decree + all receipts that you are claiming from the credit.
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Hope ours goes quicker. We adopted from the States (less paperwork) and it was a special needs adoption, so we are supposed to get the full credit without having to itemize our expenses.

Such BS that the federal government can hang onto thousands of $ that belong to you for so long because of their incompetence yet charge you huge fees if you're a day late on paying them.
 
RacerDeac said:
Just had to file an extension...realized at the last minute that we don't yet have a SS# for my son that we adopted in October and it's the difference in thousands of $$ of adoption and child tax credits. Should have done my taxes a month ago and we could have gotten the SS# in time.
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Congrats and good job.

My tax date is Oct 15th.
 
Had to create an Excel "diary" to offset my Pick 6 hit.
 
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I just did my taxes. Fuck social issues, I'm voting Republican from now on. But I'm in DC so it won't really matter.
 
IAppreciateIt said:
woot got close to 4k of my own money back from the grubby hands of the idiot government
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maybe i'm crazy, but if you're getting 4K back shouldn't you look at your withholdings?
 
Do e. getting $10 from the Feds, $116 from my state.
 
I don't know if its a nationwide campaign but McDonalds has an ad about how some guy that got the smallest refund in the world is still happy because his $0.01 refund means he can get a second big Mac for a penny on April 15.

It really annoys me because the IRS rounds dollar amounts on returns.

Also, $0.01 refund is way better than paying.
 
Got $185 from the US, owed OR $181. That's a sweet $4 to me... wooo.
 
lbE08 said:
maybe i'm crazy, but if you're getting 4K back shouldn't you look at your withholdings?
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Often happens when you change jobs mid year and make more money at the 2nd, which I think he did.
 
palmab03 said:
Often happens when you change jobs mid year and make more money at the 2nd, which I think he did.
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Yup. In my case I had a job change (from contractor to FTE) and a big life event (adoption) with tax benefits that we couldn't accurately predict the timing off...i.e. at first we had a due date of December 25th, but that shifted to late October and we actually went to court on December 27th, the one day family court was open during the holidays, to close our adoption before 2012 was up. If we had closed just a few days later, it would have changed everything.

I had to make major changes to witholding in 2013 because the adoption tax credit is rolling for 5 years. My quick calcs show I shouldn't owe any federal next year and very little state for the next two years.
 
IamThunderbolt said:
Had to do that for my 2011 taxes. Got the SSN in may, filed (have to mail it in, can't efile). So filed return in may 2012. Just got the refund in the mail this past Monday. Prepare for a long process of sending in lots of paperwork including some things twice.

They require his/her ir3 visa and the adoption decree + all receipts that you are claiming from the credit.
Click to expand...

RacerDeac said:
Hope ours goes quicker. We adopted from the States (less paperwork) and it was a special needs adoption, so we are supposed to get the full credit without having to itemize our expenses.
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Another reason I hope ours moves faster: the credit is no longer refundable starting in 2012, so we can only take as much as our remaining tax burden (after all other credits/deductions) in any given year and we have 5 years to use it all up. Should be less scrutinized than a refundable $12K+ credit, I would think, since we're not actually netting refund money above and beyond our tax burden. Then again, this is the IRS.
 
RacerDeac said:
Another reason I hope ours moves faster: the credit is no longer refundable starting in 2012, so we can only take as much as our remaining tax burden (after all other credits/deductions) in any given year and we have 5 years to use it all up. Should be less scrutinized than a refundable $12K+ credit, I would think, since we're not actually netting refund money above and beyond our tax burden. Then again, this is the IRS.
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This should be true. There was little/no scrutinization for the NC adoption credit, which is also a rolling credit. I will say, it was nice to get the large refund check, though, since our savings was pretty well depleted.
 
lbE08 said:
maybe i'm crazy, but if you're getting 4K back shouldn't you look at your withholdings?
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I get back a sizeable refund every year and it is totally because I never adjusted my withholding after buying a house. I know it makes no sense to give the government a relatively big interest free loan, but I would rather that than adjust to the point of potentially having to stroke a check come April 15. I realize this is completely irrational, but let's be honest, the foregone interest on my $5,000 or $10,000 is like $1.42. It also kind of works like additional forced savings for me, because I always take my refund check and put it into my money market or investment accounts (yes, I realize I could take the "extra" per paycheck if I adjusted my withholding and do the same thing, but I would actually have to do that).
 
How much are you even allowed to adjust your withholding? If I had a choice I'd just get all my monies and write the govt. a check at the end of the year, but I didn't think that was alliowed.
 
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