It is almost that time we all dread in North America (no idea about the rest of the world) but it is almost time to file your taxes.
Do you do your own taxes or do you have someone do them for you?
I get it if your taxes are, well, complicated. Best to hire a professional.
Being an Excel jockey and having a pretty straight forward single income without complex financial twists that I do my own. I am usually within 3 bucks of the government’s total so I haven’t had an issue with Canada’s version of the IRS, the CRA.
Or feel free to discuss any topic that is a shelter on tax talk.
I pay an accountant to do mine. They’re not that complicated, but also it stresses me out and it’s an easy situation of here lemme throw some money at this and it’s someone else’s problem.
I have several friends who haven’t started theirs yet and I’m like you got 10 days. 10 DAYS.
Husband got ours done early, but Other-Husband hasn’t even started his yet and it’s making me twitchy every time I think about it :/
I have a guy, saw him Monday. I had pay this year because I took out a big sum of money out of investments to pay for my new car and heat pump. ☹️
You should be able to get a tax break from the heat pump.
Hmm, he didn’t mention it but I can check and file an amendment. Thanks.
https://sealed.com/resources/inflation-reduction-act-heat-pump-tax-credit/
The latest tax credit rules for EVs are so bad. Basically the situation as the Inflation Reduction Act/Green New Deal was being negotiated was GM and Ford were fine with letting all vehicles get some credit, made in Japan, Mexico or Korea, made in the US, they didn’t care. The US auto makers just wanted to expand the market for EVs. Lots of assembly still happens in the US, lots of parts are made in the US, they just wanted to expand the market for now.
Lobbyists got to Manchin and got him to throw a fit. Under the cover of supposedly backing US jobs, he got so many rules thrown in that this is the list of qualifying cars.
https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/manufacturers-and-models-for-new-qualified-clean-vehicles-purchased-in-2023-or-after
Yep, mine is being built in Austria at the only carbon neutral factory by the most environmentally friendly car builder. American company that wants to build cars here but costs too much upfront. Qualified in 22 but that new law fucked us. They found a loophole but is keeping many others from buying an electric car now.
Thanks!
I broke down a couple of years ago and got TurboTax after inheriting a relatively small but complicated amount split among mutual funds.
I really resent how there isn’t a way (as far as I could tell) to just convert it all to a simple fund with a simple one time tax and be done with it. Small investments suffer because of rich people tax dodges.
We used to use an accountant, but then we moved across the country and the next accountant we tried turned into a total nightmare. So, I was done trying to play accountant roulette and got Turbo Tax. I really, really, hate the companies like Intuit and H&R Block spend so much money lobbying to an insanely complex tax code (and to prevent a system like Canada has) so they can justify their business models, but I ultimately don’t have any other viable options.
We have 3 businesses that make it too complicated to do on our own. We had such a crap year we are getting a refund. I have a complicated issue with the EV I am buying too, I entered into a commitment before they changed the law even though I haven’t got the car I have to claim it this year. It is very convoluted.
I just do them myself because I can’t get my shit together well enough to . . . get my tax shit together well enough and leave it all with an accountant. I usually tinker with them over the course of a week or two, which helps when I suddenly think of something else to write off when I’m in the shower or I wake up in the middle of the night.
As usual, the federal return was easy enough to transmit electronically this time (barring some connection issues), but I had to rally to put everything together to mail to the State — it costs $19.95 to send that electronically, and fuck that — because my car was being repaired for most of this week and I wanted to take advantage of the court gig I had downtown to be able to send it off at the post office from there. Of course, it was too much to do the same for the city return (yeah, yeah — I know), so I’m hoping that the other court gig I have downtown on the 18th still stands so that I can stop by City Hall and get reimbursed for the parking.
I cannot understand the Missouri tax return. That was why I used to use turbotax and then later an accountant as things got more complicated. The federal 1040EZ? Totally fine. Then I got to the state return and I was like… these rows literally contradict each other how to these dumbfucks expect me to fill out this form???
When our youngest was a toddler we shared a part time nanny with another couple, and being good upstanding citizens we paid our share of her 20ish hours a week above the table, on the books, including Social Security and Medicare. She was probably four decades away from qualifying, but we felt she still needed the credit.
I did the tax calculations and filing myself, but it nearly broke me.
I exaggerate! It was probably only five or six hours of research. But doing the right thing shouldn’t be so much work.
Yeah, I had a similar experience with getting our retaining wall replaced. The town conservation commission (well, really, just one total asshole on the commission) made it a total fucking hassle which cost us thousands of dollars more than it should have. At one point I told the commission, point blank, that I made a point of trying to do everything right and by the book and they were doing their damnedest to punish me for it–and all they were really doing was teaching me to avoid them in the future the next time something like this comes up.
One of my finance professors in graduate school swore that no student of his should ever need to go see an accountant. So I diligently did my taxes by hand. One year we owed money, so we decided to try an accountant to see if he could help. His numbers matched mine to the penny. That was the last time I ever used an accountant, and I think it was 1992?
Once TurboTax became a thing, I just jumped on that. Screw all this sitting with a calculator and crap. When we lived in Atlanta, we would split the cost with a friend (that’s when you bought the disks). I’ve used TurboTax ever since. Life’s too short to sit there and fill out forms. I’m usually done by about Feb. 15 or so. Already got my refund and that’s that.
Plus the IRS ain’t gonna bother with TurboTax filings. Actually, they really don’t want to bother anybody that’s not in the 1%. Middle- and lower-income people in the US have like a 98% compliance rate. Only rich people cheat on taxes, and the IRS knows it.
Accountant. I’ve bounced around between a few, but been with my current one for about 10 years. It’s stressful enough just getting all the right paperwork in order. Used to get a larger return, but thanks to Mango, it’s substantially less.
Right!! I know conversationally my friends and I have all noticed that, too, that we got less money back after dipshit’s tax package went through.
I did OK with our taxes again this year. Filed back in February. I used to do a lot better before the Trump Tax Cuts which actually raised my taxes considerably, but we’re still in good shape.
Turbotax. I whined about this before, but I have seven tenths of one percent of the stock in the company I work for. Actually it is 125 shares but translates to that tiny percentage. This causes a K1, and Pennsylvania won’t allow electronic filing of K1s. I have some other small investments with RBC, and they mostly just auto-fill. Except for the ones that they say have various bought dates, and the government wants an exact date. Taxes take me most of a day, but I do not add up medical and donations until then. It may be worth it to start recording stuff in Quicken.
i lie about my own…well sorta
the gubment fills in most of the paperwork
they has all the deets… at least about what i legally earn
theres a few perks to being a metal worker
used to be a panel beater
anyways….ill get your fucked up quarter panel paint ready for like a hundred…. cash
Ms. Meme goes the Turbo Tax route. And same as others, our taxes went up after the Trump Tax fairy tale.