View Full Version : Have you done your taxes yet?
I am STILL waiting for my last two 1099's to arrive and then I can finish.
What tax program do you use? Do you use automatic deposit to your account?
We have used Turbo Tax - online version - for several years and I like it. Though I have not looked at any of the other programs, seems I am use to Turbo Tax. We have our refunds directly deposited into our checking account.
I have an Excel spreadsheet that has my tax model in it, then I re-enter the data into Turbotax and have it verify and fill out/print the forms for me.
I use H&R Block online. I got the last of my documents in the mail last night, however, one of the forms I need isn't available on H&R block yet, so I will have to wait.
I did enough to find out that I don't have to pay taxes on my forgiven debt from the short sale of my condo (whoohooo!) I was worried about how much that was going to be, since I ended up having to short sale by $50K (right after I bought, half the building was foreclosed on - sinking the price of my condo like a stone)....
San Onofre Guy
2-1-12, 6:21pm
I am also waiting for an investment account reporting form. Thanks to Turbo Tax I am all done except for inputting a few numbers which I should receive February 15.
Gizmo I am glad to hear of your lower tax bill, however this is a huge gripe of mine. When the bank writes off it's loss of $50,000, the loss should be and used to be imputed income to you. If you are in Mitt's tax bracket of 15%, you just received a welfare payment of $7,500. How about sharing that windfall you received by financially supporting the forums.
I do need to add that when my assistant turned her house over to the bank during the last downturn in 1995 she received a huge tax bill due to the imputed income rules.
I love TurboTax, but I'm a little concerned that I may be not doing things right. Both I and my DH are self-employed (no employees and work at home, so not real complicated), but we also have my mother-in-law's albatross of a home that has become a huge money pit in this recession.
Do you think I should go to a CPA just so I don't mishandle the house? We had tenants until July last year, and the house has been vacant since (except for our squatter).
All done, except for a 1099 that's due to be online on February 15th. >:( I use
H&R Block tax software and always direct deposit. Direct deposit is *very* fast and it looks like I'm gettig a nice refund. :D
When my computer crashed in Oct my QuickBooks Pro died with it and I couldn't get it to reinstall. So I'm plugging away in Excel to put all my numbers together (we're incorporated). I'm almost done and then I'll mail it off to the accountant and let him wrap it up. I do all of my quarterly taxes and by handing him everything all neat and tidy (instead of in a garbage bag like one of his clients used to do) he doesn't charge me a whole lot and I'm comfortable with him knowing what he is doing.
We're takingit all to an accountant on Friday! Woo hoo. Since I have been doing contract work, I need help with the taxes. Looking forward to it... Luckily, we keep very good records in QB's, and I have detailed mileage records, etc. It will be interesting to see what's deductible for my small consultancy practice.
Do you think I should go to a CPA just so I don't mishandle the house? We had tenants until July last year, and the house has been vacant since (except for our squatter).
Yes, I think you should, Catherine. It seems your taxes are more complicated this year, and it's not really that you couldn't do it yourself, but rather you could very well miss out on deductions you would be entitled to. Take it to an expert.
I have always had my dad (or, rather, my sister, who works for my dad) do our taxes since that's what he does for a living and we get the family discount (i.e., free). Still waiting for 2 more 1099s, but I will gather up all our info this weekend so we will be ready to send the package ASAP.
Kara
We are ready except for the confirmation 1099s. Love Turbo Tax and the importing of data.
I do my taxes in March every year. That way everything is waiting for me rather than me waiting for forms to arrive.
I use TaxAct - there is a free version but I usually buy the upgrade that comes with state taxes as well. It's usually about $18, so less than TurboTax.
We've been sending our taxes to the same firm for the 22+ years I've been married. They are in another state and they are who DH used prior to me coming on the scene. This tax preparer is a tax attorney and she employs CPAs. Their fee doesn't even reach $400. I think the low fee reflects all of the work DH does to organize the information he sends to them.
We have an accountant do our taxes as we have a business and several other sources of income. We always pay state and federal taxes so it doesn't matter to us when we get taxes done but usually make an appointment for sometime in February before the accountant gets super busy.
Nope, I live in a country that does them for me ;)
We are ready except for the confirmation 1099s. Love Turbo Tax ...
That's where I am, too
loosechickens
2-2-12, 1:56pm
We use TurboTax, but usually wait until late February or early March, because every time we've tried to do them early, some correction came in from brokerage or investments on dividends paid in current year, but counted in previous year, limited partnership stuff, etc. It's easier just to wait until you know the dust has settled, all the final figures are in place, and you can do them once and be done with it.
Don't even have to file this year - same as last year - as the taxable part of my income is below the combined standard deduction and personal exemption. Yay, being a cheapskate is fun :-)!
Do you think I should go to a CPA just so I don't mishandle the house? We had tenants until July last year, and the house has been vacant since (except for our squatter).
When I bought my first rental property I had a CPA do the taxes. After that I tried Turbo Tax and the rental property section is not hard to navigate at all, so I've never gone back. I do have to devote some time to it, but I keep my rental income and expenses in spreadsheets so it is not a huge time suck for me.
I believe Turbo Tax has some questions to guide you if you have turned a home you previously owned into a rental. I might take a stab at it and see if its complicated based on your situation, and then you can always go to a professional if need be.
How did things go with the squatter?
Personally, I am ready to get on with taxes and may do them this weekend if I have down time. Last year, I waited until the last minute because we owed money. Then we had to file an extension because I lost a form and had to have it resent. I hated the feeling of them hanging over me!
Hopefully this year all the money we shelled out from the tornado will make us have a refund :(
Gizmo I am glad to hear of your lower tax bill, however this is a huge gripe of mine. When the bank writes off it's loss of $50,000, the loss should be and used to be imputed income to you. If you are in Mitt's tax bracket of 15%, you just received a welfare payment of $7,500. How about sharing that windfall you received by financially supporting the forums.
I do need to add that when my assistant turned her house over to the bank during the last downturn in 1995 she received a huge tax bill due to the imputed income rules.
It is imputed income, but when I filled out the forms for that on H&R block it gave me a series of questions about where the cancelled debt came from, and then it said that because it is from a house short-sale that it is exempt from taxes. Maybe it is something new for this year? I need to research before I file. I was just filling out the forms to see how much I was going to owe.
Also, I'm glad because I was staring down a tax bill of $14K on an income of $40K and I'm still trying to pay off my huge tax bill from last year. I was getting ulcers all year trying to figure out how the H*** I was going to pay that off.
Edit to add: Found it
Federal Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief
Under the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 (H.R. 3648) signed by the President on December 20, 2007, Internal Revenue Code §108(a)(1)(E) was added and provides that a taxpayer will not be taxed upon cancellation of debt income if the following conditions are met:
. The property sold in the short sale is the taxpayer’s principal residence, as that term is used in IRC §121.
. The cancellation of debt is Qualified Principal Residence Indebtedness** under IRC Section 163(h)(3)(B).
. The indebtedness is discharged after January 1, 2007 and before January 1, 2013. (The end date was increased by three years from 2010 to 2013 pursuant to H.R. 1424, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008).
**Qualified Principal Residence Indebtedness is a loan secured by the residence used to acquire, construct or substantially improve the residence. The income relief provided is capped at $1,000,000 in the case of a married person filing a separate return and $2,000,000 for all others.
Any reduction of indebtedness excluded by IRC §108(a)(1)(E) will be applied to reduce the basis of the taxpayer’s principal residence, but not below zero. This could result in a higher amount of capital gains tax owed by the taxpayer.
ApatheticNoMore
2-2-12, 6:01pm
Oh heavens no, not done my taxes yet (haven't even received all W2s, much less anything else). I will attempt them myself, probably by hand and then by turbo tax, my mom might double check my calculations as well, and probably when I have got some handle on things so I can talk more intelligently about them I will book a meeting with the IRS and go see the local IRS branch, and also seek yet again for a local accountant who understands my taxes (haven't had much luck).
Hate it? Oh yea makes me want to scream actually. But need to pay the things no matter how hair pulling complex they are, or go to jail I guess. I never even wanted to get in this crazy tax situation, trust me I didn't, but it happened.
[ETA: got my second W2 and even it made absolutely NO sense. Sigh ... welcome to my tax nightmare, just when I think I've hit bottom on this thing it gets worse.]
Still waiting on eTrade to send me stuff, so no, haven't done them. I use turbotax. It's worth the nominal cost to have the program figure out all the forms I need and whatnot. I suppose I'd use direct deposit, but generally I always owe something because I'd rather have less withheld during the year and pay a little at the end instead of giving the government a free loan all year long.
Finished! Okay almost, I can see my non-taxed income total from their website and I have "assumed" this to be correct. I plugged in all the figures. I could use that refund yesterday if you get my drift!
I will wait to push the send button until I get that last 1099 - "its in the mail" they said...
I did them this week and we are getting a ridiculously large refund from both Federal and State. I have a hard time figuring out how much to have taken out because DH works seasonally and we never know how each year will turn out financially until it's over. We also had another baby last year (kid #4), DH was in school part of the year and I had homeschool expenses I could claim on our state return. I need to do a better job of keeping those reciepts this year. I would have had even more to claim if I had been better about that. We had all kinds of odd credits and deductions on the state especially. I didn't know, for example, that you could claim the Child and Dependent Care credit for a newborn even if you didn't have any childcare expenses. Last year we got a much smaller refund.
Ours are all done, and for the first time in several years we are getting a refund (amazing what a new baby can do)! It will go towards debt repayment. My goal is to be completely out of debt, except for our mortgage in 3 years. I think I can, I think I can...
So so so happy to have handed it all to the accountant today!
Nope, have not started on it yet, as we have not gotten the w-2s from the association where we both worked. Hoping it comes this week. Last year we had to pay, hoping this year we do not. But I worked in two different states so we will have to do returns for AZ and UT and Federal. Texas thankfully, we don't have to do being as there is no state taxes (and our domicile is Texas.) We use TurboTax. It is pretty easy as we just have income and interest.
militaryman
2-6-12, 2:53pm
Got mine done and will apply refund to Home Equity Line of Credit that was tapped to buy my 2011 car --- that will leave 9k on HELOC balance. Trying to pay it off by 2012 years end and then I will be 100% debt free again. Hoping to save and pay cash for replacement of DW's 2007 vehicle in about three years.
jennipurrr
2-8-12, 10:42am
UGH UGH UGH...I am halfway done and I am pretty sure we won't get to deduct a single expense related to our house repair. I gathered up all the receipts and we have nearly $8000 in expenses AFTER insurance. But, even with that we still likely will take the standard deduction, all that is not deductible. I hate these tricky tax laws.
Installed the software today, but after a couple of hours found myself too disappointed to continue. With subpar graphics and no discernable plot, TurboTax is, hands down, the worst video game I've ever played.
loosechickens
2-14-12, 1:20pm
but, oh, when you can download right from your brokerage account into TurboTax, and watch a bunch of complicated trades and investments just sort themselves into the proper places....who needs video games???? ;-) We LOVE TurboTax.....well, as much as anyone can "love" the process of paying taxes, hahahahaha......
That was an insider joke LC. I took my grandson to the store with me last weekend to buy TurboTax. He thought it was a video game and wanted to be the first to play it when we returned home. He equated 'Turbo' with racing. Although I'd never made the connection myself, it made sense when he explained it.
jennipurrr
2-14-12, 4:49pm
Finished yesterday during my lunch break. I didn't get to itemize on federal but did on state, who knows? I am just glad to be done with it and we are getting a little refund so works for me.
loosechickens
2-14-12, 6:41pm
That was an insider joke LC. I took my grandson to the store with me last weekend to buy TurboTax. He thought it was a video game and wanted to be the first to play it when we returned home. He equated 'Turbo' with racing. Although I'd never made the connection myself, it made sense when he explained it.
Oh, I get it now. That is SO funny, Alan, and I can see how the "Turbo" threw him off. I am sure it is named that so even WE have at least that subliminal impression ourselves. Haha
Had my taxes prepared by a professional for the first time ever. I rounded up all the forms and receipts, and even typed a few detailed lists, and using all that she was able to do both federal and state in a little over an hour including the e-filing. Cost was $200.
She said she could tell I'd done my own taxes before because I was one of her few clients who brought everything they needed to finish in one appointment.
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