oh then if you itemize, it'd go there. but you only get over 7.5% of your AGI, which probably means nothing, unless you had a lot of other medical

3/20/2014 12:52:07 PM

mortgage interest, taxes paid, charitable donations, HSA contributions. so now add in insurances, and it's a sizeable amount.

sorry for the stupidity, but what does your last post mean? "but you only get over 7.5% of your AGI"

3/20/2014 1:35:22 PM

Let's say your adjusted gross income is $50,000 so 7.5% of your AGI is $3,750.

If you pay $500 per month for insurance, you'd get to take $2,250 on your Schedule A for insurance. ($6,000 - 3,750)

3/20/2014 2:20:29 PM

ah, ok. so maybe my insurances won't do much for me then.

3/20/2014 2:42:01 PM

lol it's actually 10% now. I just do a lot of old people where the 7.5% still applies

[Edited on March 20, 2014 at 4:41 PM. Reason : tax season blows]

3/20/2014 4:40:18 PM

Pro-tip:

if you're using tax software and getting a refund of meaningful size, you might consider using TurboTax. They have a deal with Amazon where you can get whatever portion you want of your refund issued as an Amazon gift card or account credit, with a 10% bonus, and it never expires.

I normally don't get much of a refund, because I'm not a believer in loaning money interest-free, but since I installed solar panels on my house this year, there's a 30% federal credit, and I ended up with something like a $5500 refund. I had $4k of it issued as an Amazon credit, hahaha...so that's $400 of free money to buy shit on Amazon with.

[Edited on March 23, 2014 at 10:58 PM. Reason : ]

3/23/2014 10:57:45 PM

^ I thought about that, but what are you going to do with 4k (to use your numbers) on amazon? I dont spend 4k on my business account in a year on amazon, much less my personal account.

3/24/2014 8:10:32 PM

Its non expiring, so you can use portions at a time. I think it would take me quite a while to use that much.

3/25/2014 8:37:12 PM

has anyone ever purchased tax credits? i'm planning to buy some GA film credits for the 2014 years to help offset my GA liability - requiring a statement from GA dept of revenue and using a reputable broker

3/25/2014 9:22:22 PM

^^^ i mean, you can buy damn near anything on Amazon, often shipped to your door as cheaply as you can get it anywhere else, and it doesn't expire, so I'll eventually use it.

...and shit, I probably have $4k worth of stuff on my shopping list right now, anyway.

3/25/2014 10:20:20 PM

I just checked on mint, and we spent ~$7000 at amazon in the last 12 months. It's basically like a costco, except they bring your shit to your house.

3/26/2014 9:56:57 AM

Can your employer change your withholdings without your permission or knowledge?

Cause mine didn't withhold state taxes according to my W2... and that's something I'm not prepared for. I'll look at my paystubs when I get home; I guess I should pay more attention to them.

3/27/2014 4:09:14 PM

Sounds like someone goofed if that's the case. They shouldn't have changed it unless you submitted a new W4 (federal) or NC-4 (state).

3/27/2014 4:44:12 PM

I didn't submit anything. Hope my federal return covers it plus the damn no-quarterly payment penalty. I should get a fat fucking bonus to cover this shit. I had good plans for that money.

3/27/2014 4:52:03 PM

Still want to know if what they did was legal or not. I sure as hell shouldn't be paying the non-payment penalty for this shit.

3/27/2014 6:31:03 PM

+1 on the Amazon idea. I don't see how anybody couldn't use free money at Amazon
I mean comeon.... http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ascsubtag=AlEjTrVGEeOpM6pGMlI0_A0_CWk-3_0_0_0&docId=1001919181&dcp=omd.105539407.&dcc=0.280345402&dcn=1

3/27/2014 8:44:39 PM

I think the admin is starting to understand my level of anger. Imma take this one to the top.

How in the hell does NCDOR not have a damn call management system? Busy signal? In 2014? What is this?

[Edited on March 28, 2014 at 9:32 AM. Reason : .]

3/28/2014 9:28:28 AM

So did you just not notice the state withholding was 0's on every pay stub? I always submit a new W4 and NC4 each year and calculate what should be getting withheld so I can make sure they haven't goofed each pay period. Granted HR here is pretty good. Had a change in filing status 3/4 of the way through last near so I changed my allowances and the HR guy actually came to me to verify that I didn't want anything withheld.

3/28/2014 9:57:03 AM

No, I didn't even look at them. I've been here for 4 years and never had an issue, so I stopped looking at them and just filed them away. Hell, I didn't even look at my W2 all that closely and just sent it to my CPA. He noticed there were no state withholdings. I realize some fault is on me for not looking at each document closely, but after years of the same, it didn't seem needed. But I can't help but to place most of the blame on someone in billings for changing my withholdings without permission or informing me. That's just wrong, if not illegal (unless my W4 was fradulent, the IRS required a change, and I was unresponsive to requests for a change, none of which is true).

And I didn't find my bump in pay to be a surprise because I got a raise at the same time, thus was expecting the increase.

3/28/2014 10:15:39 AM

So the company CPA had them change withholdings because additional out-of-state employees were hired and it apparently made better sense for them to do that (NY company with no NC presence, so they didn't do NC taxes, just NY, which I got credit for in NC). So they changed my withholdings from full to none without telling me. Though I was told they'll cover the penalties (and I'm hoping to get the overage covered, too).

3/28/2014 11:21:51 AM

Debating doing the home office deduction this year.
What are the cons?

3/28/2014 11:59:44 AM

the only con i think is increased audit risk - i did it when i worked from home a decent amount (2005-2009) and never ran in to problems

3/28/2014 12:13:40 PM

But what about when I sell the home?

3/28/2014 12:23:24 PM

absolutely nothing has changed except that i closed an account at one bank and transferred the funds to my main account.

Yet i'm owing federal $130 and state over $300!? WTF?

3/30/2014 3:13:39 PM

tax brackets shifted iirc

3/30/2014 4:14:10 PM

just did our taxes, and paid a nice fat $10k to the IRS. on the sorta bright side we're getting back $1k from VA... so yay?

my wife and I already claim 0 exemptions on our W-4. other than having our employers deduct another $800 per month from our paychecks (401k deductions already maxed), anything else I'm not thinking of at the moment to avoid a large amount owed (not liability) next year?

4/14/2014 10:12:34 PM

we were in the same boat until we decided to add additional withholding out of each of our paychecks - it's the easiest option without investigating additional tax credits

one that I'm using for the 2014 tax year is the GA film credit - basically film companies get a significant tax credit for filming in GA and if they don't have a large tax liability they can sell the credit - typically 0.85-0.90 on the dollar - some brokers have minimums but you can typically find a group to go in if needed

4/14/2014 10:18:42 PM

Do either of you work multiple jobs? Kinda odd that you'd be that far off. We owed pretty big this year as well. I knew it was coming and did the 'withhold x dollars more from each check' to fix it. You'll love the estimated tax vouchers as well. I ignore them and just make sure to withhold enough the following year.

4/14/2014 10:20:51 PM

^^ Srsly??? Sounds like pretty easy money....

4/14/2014 11:04:47 PM

The seller I'm using is at .875 and comes with a letter from the dept. of revenue - just have to know to look because it's not well advertised

4/14/2014 11:32:22 PM

^^^

nah, just one job each but i'm guessing the withholding at 0 exemptions is just too low given the tax bracket our cumulative salaries put us into. barely missed hitting the penalty zone at least. yeah, looks like we just need to up our withholding manually. Hadn't run into this before when I was making more than my wife. I'll just blame her

^ VA has a similar film credit-- how did you find a broker for this? might have to look into that.

4/15/2014 12:08:57 AM

Just getting started right now ... hears to hoping I can stop finding things to distract myself with and knock this out quickly on turbotax.

4/15/2014 12:42:56 AM

Quote :

"if you're using tax software and getting a refund of meaningful size, you might consider using TurboTax. They have a deal with Amazon where you can get whatever portion you want of your refund issued as an Amazon gift card or account credit, with a 10% bonus, and it never expires. I normally don't get much of a refund, because I'm not a believer in loaning money interest-free, but since I installed solar panels on my house this year, there's a 30% federal credit, and I ended up with something like a $5500 refund. I had $4k of it issued as an Amazon credit, hahaha...so that's $400 of free money to buy shit on Amazon with. "

fuuuuuck why didn't I read this thread before doing my taxes? getting back ~3k this year and I buy everything down to my qtips on amazon

4/15/2014 1:35:26 AM

Owed 1300 bucks not what I was hoping for.

4/15/2014 8:31:19 AM

^^^^ a friend of mine is a CPA at a consulting acounting firm and referred me but any accounting firm should be able to help although you'll likely have more luck at larger ones is my guess

there are plenty of tricks that the wealthy use that aren't mentioned to the smaller guys because it's not worth the time - if the seller is going at .90 on the dollar then the broker's cut has to be something worthwhile for them to want to go through the hassle - i'm under the assumption in this case that the fee they are taking is less than .05

4/15/2014 8:59:11 AM

Oh man, I wish we'd known about that Amazon deal. We already order a ton there, and damn near all the household and business stuff. Baby on the way, and I can't imagine that's going to do nothing but increase our online buying habits.

4/15/2014 9:01:44 AM

We didn't get our return to the CPA until the 7th of April. (their preferred cutoff is April 1st) They did a rough workup to ensure that we don't owe any penalties and filed for the automatic extension.

I really, really hope they overestimated, or used the standard deduction, or rounded up to ensure no interest/penalties because I owed about double what I thought I would owe. Wife is an independent contractor, so it is always tricky, but we got a nice refund last year....and lets just say it was a shock to get the #s over the weekend.

For comparrison sake I ran our total income through a rough online calculator and based on what I already paid in, and what my wife paid in quarterly we would owe about 85% of the number our CPA came back with to the Feds. Its our fault for being slack, but fingers crossed I get a bit of that $texas back.

4/15/2014 9:28:37 AM

well, the federal government gave us an interest free loan of 600 bucks this year.

4/15/2014 10:17:44 AM

Finished at 4am using turbo tax home and small business edition.

8500 coming back to me ... thanks to a truck purchased for business use.

4/15/2014 10:48:12 AM

Quote :

"other than having our employers deduct another $800 per month from our paychecks (401k deductions already maxed), anything else I'm not thinking of at the moment to avoid a large amount owed (not liability) next year?"

just set the money aside during the year and pay it at the end, unless you're getting hit with an underpayment penalty.

4/15/2014 11:17:18 AM

I believe my folks pay estimated taxes quarterly.

4/15/2014 11:49:15 AM

.

[Edited on April 15, 2014 at 12:22 PM. Reason : .]

4/15/2014 12:22:26 PM

Quote :

"just set the money aside during the year and pay it at the end, unless you're getting hit with an underpayment penalty."

They will. If you owe taxes, you generally are required to do estimated taxes quarterly to make up the difference. If you don't, you pay a penalty. The easy way to just avoid this is just to up your withholdings to make sure by the time you report next year, you paid at least the federal taxes that you paid the previous year.

[Edited on April 15, 2014 at 2:10 PM. Reason : .]

4/15/2014 2:08:59 PM

Pretty sure that if you don't pay quarterly, you owe only interest on the unpaid taxes, if you file by the filing deadline. Penalties occur only if you miss the filing deadline.

4/15/2014 3:28:00 PM

Underpayment penalty only factors in when taxes owed at filing is > 10% of the total tax liability

4/15/2014 10:55:48 PM

Quote :

"@RumsfeldOffice That I & most Americans have no idea whether our taxes are accurate tells us something. My annual letter to the #IRS: pic.twitter.com/BFh0AXTvAk"

\

What a douche.

4/16/2014 1:43:32 AM

I dunno, i think he has a rather valid point.

4/16/2014 3:56:36 PM

He may be a douche for a plethora of reasons, but that letter is not among them.

4/16/2014 4:30:09 PM

got $1,600 back. meh.

4/16/2014 4:53:15 PM

I broke even, pretty much. Had to pay a little to the feds, but got a little back from state. I'm cool with them not having an interest free loan all year.

4/16/2014 5:09:50 PM