Taxes
- Thread starter Zehnpai
- Start date
unless you have kids with an ex, own a small business, are a dairy farmer, or have earned income attained while in federal prison you definitely need to just hit up turbotax.
1099-div, 1099-b, 1099-r, all very common and will be accounted for.
1099-div, 1099-b, 1099-r, all very common and will be accounted for.
Vandyn
Blackwing Lair Raider
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I second this. I've used the online version for the past 3 years, no issues whatsoever. It also has a real good solution finder for most anything.
Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
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Yep always use turbotax myself too. It's a little scary since you don't want to fuck up, but almost every menu on their site is straightforward.
If you earned income from multiple states(countries?) you may have some trouble.
If you earned income from multiple states(countries?) you may have some trouble.
Alex
Still a Music Elitist
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Multiple states isn't too bad. Last year sucked because I sold a car I bought in Ohio in California and then a few years ago I did some independent consulting which makes your taxes take about twice as long to complete. However, this past year I was able to complete everything in two hours and had my returns by the first week of the month.
Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
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It might vary from state to state. We had an issue here between MA and RI and had to go to a tax professional for it. It took him awhile to figure it out too, had to do some engineering or some shit to get it to work.
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For those of you doing taxes in Canada, try:http://www.studiotax.com/
It's free and NETFILE certified. Been using it for a couple years now and it's quite good. It does linked spousal returns, which is handy.
It's free and NETFILE certified. Been using it for a couple years now and it's quite good. It does linked spousal returns, which is handy.
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Yep. The provincial return is part of the federal return in Ontario, don't know about the rest of the country as I've never lived elsewhere.
The web site seems to indicate that the entire program is free, period. It would appear that the only separate institution to have to agree to its use is Revenue Qu?bec (surprise, surprise) and that otherwise, it's good for the rest of Canada according to CRA.
Hate to be the first Turbotax basher, but my wife and I did ours for 5 years with Turbo tax, and twice we got a letter 6 months letter saying we owed more money. It wasn't an error on our part either: I looked up the one forms generated from turbo tax and the form said something like "If box 1 > 5000 enter a 5000, else enter 2500." Turbo tax put a 0.
So the options are 5000 or 2500. And it put a 0.... nice...
So the options are 5000 or 2500. And it put a 0.... nice...
What he said. Can you answer yes and no questions like, " Do you own a house", "Did you buy any stocks this year" etc.? Then turbo tax is fine for you. If someone is mailing you any forms like K-1s(LLP,LLC,etc) you have a small business with a bunch of fixed assets/depreciation, or have assets in a foreign country, then ante up and pay that CPA.
For you Turbo Tax users.. let me present a situation and you tell me if it's TT or CPA worthy:
Worked in two different States
Attended school
Rolled a 401k over from Vanguard to Fidelity
Started new 401k/Roth.
Looks like a professional situation to me, but I would be willing to try TT.
Worked in two different States
Attended school
Rolled a 401k over from Vanguard to Fidelity
Started new 401k/Roth.
Looks like a professional situation to me, but I would be willing to try TT.
The two states wont be an issue because each of your W2's will have state tax on them so TT will know where to put them. If you didn't move this year and were just border hoping then it should be ok.
All you need from school is your 1099-T which shows how much you paid, scholarships etc., and is easy to plug in. If you had some sort of 1099-Q (Think Health Savings Account but for school) it gets a little more complicated but not undoable.
Starting the new IRA is fine as all you need is the 1099-R and shows what you contributed, the tax etc.
Where you run into problems is the rollover ESPECIALLY if it is from a simple/traditional to a Roth or vice versa as there is all kinds of things you need to do with taxing now, later, etc.
The TL;DR of it is if you didn't have the rollover I would just do TT but with that, (adjusts his glasses and coughs) I would see professional help
As a sidenote for all of you out there thinking of getting an accountant never NEVER go to one of the big 4 or "big firms" unless you run Microsoft or something. It is always in your best interest to seek a local "mom and pop" accountant. Now with that said, try to find an accountant who has an office somewhere and not doing it out of his house unless you know him VERY WELL as the possibility for fraud / fuck ups is insane. Look for someone who bills anywhere from $100-$225 ish an hour. Any more then that, and you are just:
A return like yours would take me at most 30 minutes or so and I bill $125 an hour but keep in mind that if you go through an office, there are admin / overhead costs that get added in as well.
Fuck HR Block
edit: I fail at adding gifs.
All you need from school is your 1099-T which shows how much you paid, scholarships etc., and is easy to plug in. If you had some sort of 1099-Q (Think Health Savings Account but for school) it gets a little more complicated but not undoable.
Starting the new IRA is fine as all you need is the 1099-R and shows what you contributed, the tax etc.
Where you run into problems is the rollover ESPECIALLY if it is from a simple/traditional to a Roth or vice versa as there is all kinds of things you need to do with taxing now, later, etc.
The TL;DR of it is if you didn't have the rollover I would just do TT but with that, (adjusts his glasses and coughs) I would see professional help
As a sidenote for all of you out there thinking of getting an accountant never NEVER go to one of the big 4 or "big firms" unless you run Microsoft or something. It is always in your best interest to seek a local "mom and pop" accountant. Now with that said, try to find an accountant who has an office somewhere and not doing it out of his house unless you know him VERY WELL as the possibility for fraud / fuck ups is insane. Look for someone who bills anywhere from $100-$225 ish an hour. Any more then that, and you are just:
A return like yours would take me at most 30 minutes or so and I bill $125 an hour but keep in mind that if you go through an office, there are admin / overhead costs that get added in as well.
Fuck HR Block
edit: I fail at adding gifs.
Well the client doesn't actually see the hour billing as that is only placed on an internal form. All they see is you owe X dollars. If you ask the accountant up front all the good ones will be honest on their prices.
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In order:
W2's
1099-T's, 1098-E's if you've started paying back those loans
1099-Rs
No idea
You know you can try turbotax and get to the way end before paying? By now, you should have received all relevant tax forms. Make sure turbotax asked you for information from each form. If not, go back and hunt down where to enter it.
I'd honestly recommend doing it this way because you learn about your taxes. For example, my "financial advisor" at Ameriprise couldn't wait to get his grubby mitts on one of the 401k accounts I was rolling over. Douchebag recommended that I cash out the account and then mail it to them because it saves a couple weeks. Out of the time it takes a retirement account to mature, who gives a fuck? So even though the money never even entered my bank account, of course I get a 1099-R that says I need to be taxed. I enter the form in turbotax and it has a question asking if I moved the money to another retirement account within 60 days. Taxes rightfully avoided! Stupid advisor was useless because when I emailed him to double check, fucker said he couldn't give tax advice :|
I've used turbotax twice for moving benefits received from new jobs. I don't think a professional is needed until you start doing stuff that isn't summarized for you on a neat form around January 31st. You know, small business shit. International bank accounts and assets, etc.
Gravel
Mr. Poopybutthole
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I've always done my own taxes (finance degree), but this year the state taxes are fucking me up. I'm considering TurboTax for state, but I'm leery that even it will screw it up.
I lived in Illinois from January - July, and California from July - December. My wife lived in Illinois for all of 2012.
I have a small W-2 with Illinois (seriously small, like $400). The rest of my income was earned in California.
All of my wife's income, obviously, was in Illinois.
Illinois and California both appear to have rules on their forms say I have to use my federal filing status on the state taxes. What that means is if I file jointly for federal, I have no fucking clue how to go about doing state, since essentially the incomes were earned separately. I've had this happen before with multiple states (Illinois and Kentucky), but they were reciprocal states and so it was easy enough.
If I file separately on federal, I could just do my wife's state in Illinois and mine in California. But that stupid small paycheck fucks that up since I also have Illinois income.
Should I just throw it all into TurboTax and see what happens? Or does anyone here have any advice on how to file? I really don't want to pay someone to do my taxes, since our income was pretty low (about $39,000 gross, due to me working 5 months).
I lived in Illinois from January - July, and California from July - December. My wife lived in Illinois for all of 2012.
I have a small W-2 with Illinois (seriously small, like $400). The rest of my income was earned in California.
All of my wife's income, obviously, was in Illinois.
Illinois and California both appear to have rules on their forms say I have to use my federal filing status on the state taxes. What that means is if I file jointly for federal, I have no fucking clue how to go about doing state, since essentially the incomes were earned separately. I've had this happen before with multiple states (Illinois and Kentucky), but they were reciprocal states and so it was easy enough.
If I file separately on federal, I could just do my wife's state in Illinois and mine in California. But that stupid small paycheck fucks that up since I also have Illinois income.
Should I just throw it all into TurboTax and see what happens? Or does anyone here have any advice on how to file? I really don't want to pay someone to do my taxes, since our income was pretty low (about $39,000 gross, due to me working 5 months).