Tax Day - April 17th

T

tj

New Member
For those of us living in the US, the deadline to file your taxes is April 17th. Figured we might as well have a thread to talk about it.

This year, I used the Taxcut software, since it was offering free electronic filing. I didn't realize it was going to be such a hassle in that I don't have my printer hooked up at home (cable has been missing since I moved here last November. I'm sure it's in a box somewhere!) I erroneously thought it wouldn't be hard to merely print to file and then print it from a computer that was hooked up to a printer. Nope! Turns out it's not nearly that easy! Lol! :rolleyes:

Hey at least I have until tomorrow, right?

Anyway, here's your chance to talk about your tax stories...
 
Tried using 1040Now to file online. So far as I could tell, they have NO provision for hybrid vehicle credits. Nada. Couldn't find any way to enter them. So... there went a few hours of working on that crap.

Now attempting to use TurboTax. I really wish companies would stop trying to be clever, and just give me a stupid electronic form to fill out. I can figure out what I'm supposed to be reporting. Now...waiting for more info from DH, who has gotten huffy about it. Don't care. His fault. Am peeved...I'm sick, and stuck doing taxes at the last moment with bass-ackward program.
 
Hey guys. I just wanted you to know that I got $30 back, because the phone bills were under my name. So, I would say to check with your tax accountant to see what that would fall under. I have a higher refund than that, but I would have never known about the tax refund if I hadn't of used my accountant. It has something to do with the phone company charging to much for both local and long distance. So, if you do it yourself this year, check to be sure how that works with whatever program you use. Oh and this would fall under the cell phone company as well!!! Happy tax day! ;)
 
Until this year, I did them myself. I used TurboTax, upon the recommendation of an accountant friend of mine, and I found it rather helpful. Perhaps my taxes were easier? I did file the long form and claimed mortgage interest along with some other misc. deductions, but still prolley not altogether that complicated.

This year, because things got exponentially more complicated with our marriage, 2 rentals, and a couple of businesses, we hired an accountant.

Fortunately for us, we scheduled our appointment with him back in December, so we were able to see him in early February, taxes filed within 2 weeks of that and a very nice refund back shortly after that. All good for us this year! Our accountant was really great at emailing us early with all the information he would need from us, giving us plenty of time to get things together.

No unhappy tax stories here.

:p
 
Fortunately it's water soluble if you get at it quickly.

On the phone tax thing: there was a 3% federal excise tax on long distance phone service going back to the Spanish American war, at which time it was a luxury tax. If you had a cellphone, this likely got applied to the whole bill. Technically you can get a refund going three years back, but the catch is you are supposed to find all the phone bills to figure out the tax, then compute the insterest and so on. The form has an estimated time to assemble the records of 13 hours! In theory I could get like $60-70 back even disregarding interest (plan cost * 3 % * 3 years), but it doesn't appear they let you do such a safe undercalculation. So I think I'll take the $30 - which is I'm sure what they wanted you to do when they set it up this way.

As for finding out about it, there's a line right on the 1040EZ - but oddly enough, not on the 1040A I started with but turned out not to need.

BTW - the April 17th thing applies if you mail you are supposed to mail your taxes to Andover, MA, but I wouldn't assume so for the other IRS facilities, or for state taxes, without double checking.
 
I would dearly love to know why my printer seems "reluctant" to print today. As in, it won't print...it's just blinking at me. Stupid printer. Now I remember why we don't use it.
 
I had no problem. Did mine online using taxengine, same free service I used last year. One can save without printing and then print at one's convenience. The number of free filings did get used up pretty quickly though...

Spratt, I had an option to file for the phone refund and knew about it without going to an accountant. ;-) It has been in the news. :-)
 
Peaches said:
I would dearly love to know why my printer seems "reluctant" to print today. As in, it won't print...it's just blinking at me. Stupid printer. Now I remember why we don't use it.
Click to expand...

100% ethanol was what we used to unclog abused printheads in the research lab. And should it fail to unclog them you can always try applying it elsewhere.
 
Sagitta said:
I had no problem. Did mine online using taxengine, same free service I used last year. One can save without printing and then print at one's convenience. The number of free filings did get used up pretty quickly though...

Spratt, I had an option to file for the phone refund and knew about it without going to an accountant. ;-) It has been in the news. :-)
Click to expand...

That's awesome! Funny thing is that I watch certain news programs, so I wouldn't have known if I didn't catch our local station for the weather lol. But it was my accountant that told me about it though before I caught it on the news. The other programs didn't mention it at all. They were focused on the Don Imus case that was actually pretty interesting! ;)
 
i used taxcut. it wasn't the easiest experience, but it was worthwhile. this year, i had several investment/stock/401k related taxable transactions, and i wanted to DIY to understand the nuances of my choices. I had to constantly look for data (purchase dates, cost basis etc) in other places besides the 1099 forms that were mailed to me, but i managed to figure it all out in 2-3 days. Hopefully, my refund will arrive within a few days :)
 
quixotedlm said:
i used taxcut. it wasn't the easiest experience, but it was worthwhile. this year, i had several investment/stock/401k related taxable transactions, and i wanted to DIY to understand the nuances of my choices. I had to constantly look for data (purchase dates, cost basis etc) in other places besides the 1099 forms that were mailed to me, but i managed to figure it all out in 2-3 days. Hopefully, my refund will arrive within a few days :)
Click to expand...

Beat ya! I can pick up my refund today lol!!!! Now, should I save my refund... or should I spend it on a new dance lesson contract lol!!!! ;)
 
Re: Phone refund

There was even a Cathy cartoon on it, lol:

lca070414.gif
 
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