Octopus Overlords

stessier wrote: ↑Sun Feb 25, 2024 1:20 pm Filed for another year. I suspect I will not like next year when I don't have an electric car purchase to claim.

Refunds hit my bank account last night.

From The Atlantic the day:

The IRS Finally Has an Answer to TurboTax

Against all odds, the government has created an actually good piece of technology.
By Saahil Desai

If I hadn’t already bought TT this year, I would give this a shot. Anyone tried it? IRS’ own software, Direct File.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 8:18 am From The Atlantic the day:

The IRS Finally Has an Answer to TurboTax

Against all odds, the government has created an actually good piece of technology.
By Saahil Desai

If I hadn’t already bought TT this year, I would give this a shot. Anyone tried it? IRS’ own software, Direct File.

I thought it was limited to certain, rather basic, tax situations.

stessier wrote: ↑Tue Mar 12, 2024 11:20 am

stessier wrote: ↑Sun Feb 25, 2024 1:20 pm Filed for another year. I suspect I will not like next year when I don't have an electric car purchase to claim.

Refunds hit my bank account last night.

My state refund hit my account in less than 10 days. Stil lwaiting for federal to hit my account, but I only got like 150 back from Federal so not really worried about that.

stessier wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 10:34 am

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 8:18 am From The Atlantic the day:

The IRS Finally Has an Answer to TurboTax

Against all odds, the government has created an actually good piece of technology.
By Saahil Desai

If I hadn’t already bought TT this year, I would give this a shot. Anyone tried it? IRS’ own software, Direct File.

I thought it was limited to certain, rather basic, tax situations.

W-2 income only, standard deduction, and income-limited. It's basically form 1040EZ (does that even still exist?). It's a good start, though.

Kraken wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 11:16 am

stessier wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 10:34 am

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 8:18 am From The Atlantic the day:

The IRS Finally Has an Answer to TurboTax

Against all odds, the government has created an actually good piece of technology.
By Saahil Desai

If I hadn’t already bought TT this year, I would give this a shot. Anyone tried it? IRS’ own software, Direct File.

I thought it was limited to certain, rather basic, tax situations.

W-2 income only, standard deduction, and income-limited. It's basically form 1040EZ (does that even still exist?). It's a good start, though.

I'm very happy it exists. I hope they continue to expand it - or better yet, move to how other countries handle it and just tell us what we owe. That would require closing a lot of loop holes, though, which is a topic for a different forum.

New bracket this year but still managed to keep it lean. We owe under $1K for both state and fed combined.

stessier wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 11:26 am

Kraken wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 11:16 am

stessier wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 10:34 am

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 8:18 am From The Atlantic the day:

The IRS Finally Has an Answer to TurboTax

Against all odds, the government has created an actually good piece of technology.
By Saahil Desai

If I hadn’t already bought TT this year, I would give this a shot. Anyone tried it? IRS’ own software, Direct File.

I thought it was limited to certain, rather basic, tax situations.

W-2 income only, standard deduction, and income-limited. It's basically form 1040EZ (does that even still exist?). It's a good start, though.

I'm very happy it exists. I hope they continue to expand it - or better yet, move to how other countries handle it and just tell us what we owe. That would require closing a lot of loop holes, though, which is a topic for a different forum.

Yeah, it's a political hot potato with the players taking the positions you'd expect. Wrong forum, though.

Wife got our stuff to the CPA a couple of weeks ago; we probably won't hear from him until 4/15, and odds are we'll have to file for an extension and make an estimated payment. That's how it usually goes, anyway.

The CPA dropped off our return yesterday. It was a nice surprise as we got a federal refund with owing the state just a couple hundred. I expected some real damage with the state return but thanks to SS not being taxable at the state level it wasn’t bad at all.

Just got back from dropping off a $2,600 check at the post office. Not only did we have to come up with that big chunk of change; we also have to make estimated payments of $1,425 each quarter. My monthly $800 budget for taxes above and beyond normal withholding has to go up to $935. Oh, and property taxes are due on 5/1, too. Yikes.

The good news is that our effective federal rate fell to 11.2% this year. Historically it's been right around 12%. The other good news is that I had enough money in the tax account to cover everything, with $40 left over.

Part of this year's problem was an unplanned corporate profit. QuickBooks counts income when you generate an invoice, not when you receive payment. My client's November payment, due at the end of December, was two weeks late this year, so I couldn't write myself a paycheck to make the income go away. If they'd paid my company on time so that it could've paid me on time I would've ended the year with a small loss, which is always the objective. On the bright side, pushing the last paycheck of 2023 into '24 gives me a nice start on booking a loss for this year.

That extra $135/mo to make higher quarterly payments stings, but I have a hunch it's overpaying and 2024 will end up in our favor.

You want to make a profit every few years, to show you're a real business and not a hobby.

Yup. Unfortunately this was my third profitable year in a row. At least it was small...most of our shortfall stemmed from making insufficient quarterly payments.

Taxes undone!

They were done and filed a couple of weeks ago. A few days ago we received an amended 1099 from Fidelity. It's not going to change the dollar amounts by anything significant but we'll send it off to the tax guy, he'll amend things, and I guess we'll square things up with everybody after that.

Taxes are done. At least that's what my wife told me. I've never filed an income tax form in my life but my wife must be doing it OK

Tax refund was as much as our new heat pump—$16,000. Work increased my withholding significantly after making partner, and I’m now paying both sides of Social Security and health insurance. Felt pinched in the pocketbook last year, and now I know why.

Had to pay $700 but we got slammed last year for a lot more so I'll take it! It just sucks we didn't get a return as it would have come in handy with all the unexpected expenses we've incurred in the past couple of weeks.

Went to file my return (always wait till the end since I have to pay every year) and found out my wife’s license expired and she didn’t bother to renew it a month and a half ago, so I can’t file it tonight.

The good news is that we have a DMV literally a block and a half from us. So she should be able to just walk over and get her license renewed, right? Wrong! They’ve gone to appointment only license renewal at all 44 Chicago area DMV locations save one. So my wife is going to have to haul her ass downtown to get her license renewed.

Thank god I didn’t wait until tomorrow to file.

Filed ours on Friday. I was expecting to get absolutely hammered this year between distributing a significant amount from mom’s estate and a better than expected commission year, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting (around $6k).

Should be the last year we have to deal with filing multiple returns for both us and mom’s trust, which is a big relief.

Well, frak, I went to efile my taxes a few hours ago and I'm getting errors from the H&R Block servers ("bad gateway").

Downdetector reports a whole bunch of people were seeing outages since maybe 9 PM. I would have filed long before then if I didn't take a break to go outside and enjoy the nice weather this afternoon.

Hopefully they'll get their $#!^ together by the morning. I am not looking forward to having to print my stupid forms, write a couple of checks, and go to the post office.

I always wait until late because I know we owe a lot. My wife's previous job always withheld too little, but her new employer is better. However, my wife did some work for a non-profit this year and they paid her a bunch of money but did not withholding, so we're in the same boat as usual. Hopefully next year will be a little better.

Thanks to the kicker we're getting ~$6k back from the state.

Hrdina wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 12:12 am Well, frak, I went to efile my taxes a few hours ago and I'm getting errors from the H&R Block servers ("bad gateway").

We must have dodged that bullet as my wife uses the H&R Block software and she didn't have any issues.

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 10:39 am

Hrdina wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 12:12 am Well, frak, I went to efile my taxes a few hours ago and I'm getting errors from the H&R Block servers ("bad gateway").

We must have dodged that bullet as my wife uses the H&R Block software and she didn't have any issues.

I am still having issues. My post office closes at 4, so I'm about ready to give up and go stand in line.

H&R apparently did finally say something on twitter about this and claimed they expected to be back online by 12 EDT. Didn't happen.

Someone else claimed on reddit that they talked to CS and they said they "expect the issue to be resolved by 12pm CST [sic]." That didn't happen either.

What worries me is the ambiguity. A number of people have written that despite the "Bad Gateway" their returns were received. What I cannot afford is to pay my tax bill twice, so I'm lingering here at home in the faint hope that this will get resolved soon.

I'm contemplating trying to pay the IRS directly via irs.gov then mailing my forms, but that has the same worry about a double payment.

Effective Tax Rate
2023 - 10.34%
2022 - 10.93%
2021 - 9.76%
2020 - 9.87%
2019 - 10.31%
2018 - 11.31%
2017 - 10.16%
2016 - 10.33%
2015 - 11.65%
2014 - 11.03%
2013 - 13.47%
2012 - 15.81%
2011 - 13.10%
2010 - 12.85%
2009 - 12.87%
2008 - 12.35%
2007 - 9.82%
2006 - 9.42%
2005 - 10.66%

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 10:36 pm Effective Tax Rate
2023 - 10.34%
2022 - 10.93%
2021 - 9.76%
2020 - 9.87%
2019 - 10.31%
2018 - 11.31%
2017 - 10.16%
2016 - 10.33%
2015 - 11.65%
2014 - 11.03%
2013 - 13.47%
2012 - 15.81%
2011 - 13.10%
2010 - 12.85%
2009 - 12.87%
2008 - 12.35%
2007 - 9.82%
2006 - 9.42%
2005 - 10.66%

Now compare that to other developed modern western countries' rates, and wonder no more why our country is old and janky and crumbling in comparison. Simplistic...but it's a big factor. OTOH if we didn't spend so much on the military in comparison...but the question is if we had higher rates, and/or didn't blow it all on Oorah, WOULD we spend it to better our society at large, or return it to our citizens so they could blow it on Trump's latest grift? (coin, bible, Trump Media stock, etc)

I guess relatively, Americans travel far less than their developed Western country brethren, so they don't see how good they could have it. Ignorance is bliss and all that.

Hrdina wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 1:58 pm .What worries me is the ambiguity. A number of people have written that despite the "Bad Gateway" their returns were received. What I cannot afford is to pay my tax bill twice, so I'm lingering here at home in the faint hope that this will get resolved soon.

I'm contemplating trying to pay the IRS directly via irs.gov then mailing my forms, but that has the same worry about a double payment.

Sorry to be so late, but I confirmed with my wife that you cannot double pay. When the IRS receives a return for a certain social security number for which the amount has already been payed, they will not cash the check but instead will send the person a letter.

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2024 7:50 pm Sorry to be so late, but I confirmed with my wife that you cannot double pay. When the IRS receives a return for a certain social security number for which the amount has already been payed, they will not cash the check but instead will send the person a letter.

If only the City of Chicago would do so with traffic violations...

I am being threated with termination by my employer because I paid a ticket online 3 years ago but despite me showing them my Amex statement, the city is trying to extort a double payment.

I'm hope it ends up that I owe a big tax bill for 2024.

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2024 7:50 pm Sorry to be so late, but I confirmed with my wife that you cannot double pay. When the IRS receives a return for a certain social security number for which the amount has already been payed, they will not cash the check but instead will send the person a letter.

I sure hope that's true. So far so good. The fact that I never did get any kind of confirmation email from H&R makes me feel a little better.

It feels weird relying upon the competence of a government agency, though.