Octopus Overlords

When I plugged my numbers into the calculators the IRS provided to estimate taxes under the new plan, it told me I would likely owe $3-4K this year. As such, I've been putting off doing my taxes as long as possible. I grudgingly broke down and plugged everything into TurboTax this afternoon and was getting ready to make my payments.

Either I did something seriously wrong on my taxes, or those estimators were wildly inaccurate, because TurboTax tells me I'm getting back a veritable shitload. It's nearly double what I've gotten back in previous years, even though my income was pretty close to the same (was down 5% from last year).

So yay, I guess. Although I definitely need to figure out how to adjust my witholdings so I'll be closer to even.

coopasonic wrote: Fri Mar 15, 2019 5:04 pm Our paperwork went to the accountant on Tuesday. Hopefully I will have an idea how much trouble I am in in a couple of weeks.

Heh. Oops.

How about a 6.24% effective tax rate? That seems fair right? If I back out the EV tax credit it is a little more reasonable at 10.76%... anyway I could buy a new Honda Civic with my return (assuming a decent cash discount). I think I'll be paying down the Tesla a little bit and maybe even wash it with what's left over.

pr0ner wrote: Sat Mar 09, 2019 1:14 pm I did my first pass of my taxes today, and the best news of all is that I lost almost $7k in deductions I would have gotten last year!

Will have to do some extra number crunching when I review my final return to see how much the tax law changes really affected how much I paid in taxes in 2018 vs. what I would have paid under 2017's laws.

Finished my taxes today. While my income went up between 2017 and 2018, my effective tax rate dropped from 19.01% to 17.63%, and the actual federal taxes I owed for the year dropped by $700 due to the changes in the tax laws. That is contrasted by owing Virginia $500 more.

Thanks, Trump?

In contrast, I got boned. I maxed out my SALT and Mortgage interest deductions and ended up paying about $6000 more than last year. Yay for Trump screwing the blue states.

gbasden wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:34 pm In contrast, I got boned. I maxed out my SALT and Mortgage interest deductions and ended up paying about $6000 more than last year. Yay for Trump screwing the blue states.

Same. Did mine yesterday. Owe both Feds and Oregon a lot of money according to TurboTax.

Income went up some, but what killed us was the maxing out of SALT. Dropped our Federal deductions by more than 50%.

gbasden wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:34 pm In contrast, I got boned. I maxed out my SALT and Mortgage interest deductions and ended up paying about $6000 more than last year. Yay for Trump screwing the blue states.

This is literally what happened to me. Luckily I knew this was going to happen because I did back of the envelope last year on it otherwise I'd be deeply boned right now. Still I'm pretty pissed off. I'd love for them to put people like me on tv and talk about our 'tax cut' because somehow the story was about the tiny returns. Who gives a damn? Plenty of us got hard cocked for huge hits because the payroll companies screwed up withholding because this whole thing was rushed. So now my tax rates are European-ish without any of the "socialism benefits". And on top these assholes are playing games with critical infrastructure projects in this area. I'd almost tolerate it if they were doing good things with it. Instead, they are giving it to the super wealthy and red state projects.

gbasden wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:34 pm In contrast, I got boned. I maxed out my SALT and Mortgage interest deductions and ended up paying about $6000 more than last year. Yay for Trump screwing the blue states.

While I did max out my SALT (my state income taxes alone get me pretty close), I don't come close to maxing out the mortgage interest deduction. But as a single government employee, I can't really afford a $1M house on my own.

pr0ner wrote: Mon Apr 01, 2019 12:44 pm

gbasden wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:34 pm In contrast, I got boned. I maxed out my SALT and Mortgage interest deductions and ended up paying about $6000 more than last year. Yay for Trump screwing the blue states.

While I did max out my SALT (my state income taxes alone get me pretty close), I don't come close to maxing out the mortgage interest deduction. But as a single government employee, I can't really afford a $1M house on my own.

My house was $350k. Not exactly exorbitant.

gbasden wrote: Mon Apr 01, 2019 9:51 pm

pr0ner wrote: Mon Apr 01, 2019 12:44 pm

gbasden wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:34 pm In contrast, I got boned. I maxed out my SALT and Mortgage interest deductions and ended up paying about $6000 more than last year. Yay for Trump screwing the blue states.

While I did max out my SALT (my state income taxes alone get me pretty close), I don't come close to maxing out the mortgage interest deduction. But as a single government employee, I can't really afford a $1M house on my own.

My house was $350k. Not exactly exorbitant.

The state tax on that house is about $2200 in SC.

gbasden wrote: Mon Apr 01, 2019 9:51 pm

pr0ner wrote: Mon Apr 01, 2019 12:44 pm

gbasden wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:34 pm In contrast, I got boned. I maxed out my SALT and Mortgage interest deductions and ended up paying about $6000 more than last year. Yay for Trump screwing the blue states.

While I did max out my SALT (my state income taxes alone get me pretty close), I don't come close to maxing out the mortgage interest deduction. But as a single government employee, I can't really afford a $1M house on my own.

My house was $350k. Not exactly exorbitant.

How did you max out the mortgage deduction then? That maxes out at a loan of 750k.

pr0ner wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 8:28 am

gbasden wrote: Mon Apr 01, 2019 9:51 pm

pr0ner wrote: Mon Apr 01, 2019 12:44 pm

gbasden wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:34 pm In contrast, I got boned. I maxed out my SALT and Mortgage interest deductions and ended up paying about $6000 more than last year. Yay for Trump screwing the blue states.

While I did max out my SALT (my state income taxes alone get me pretty close), I don't come close to maxing out the mortgage interest deduction. But as a single government employee, I can't really afford a $1M house on my own.

My house was $350k. Not exactly exorbitant.

How did you max out the mortgage deduction then? That maxes out at a loan of 750k.

I thought SALT and Mortgage deduction combined was capped at 10k now.

stessier wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 9:25 am

pr0ner wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 8:28 am

gbasden wrote: Mon Apr 01, 2019 9:51 pm

pr0ner wrote: Mon Apr 01, 2019 12:44 pm

gbasden wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:34 pm In contrast, I got boned. I maxed out my SALT and Mortgage interest deductions and ended up paying about $6000 more than last year. Yay for Trump screwing the blue states.

While I did max out my SALT (my state income taxes alone get me pretty close), I don't come close to maxing out the mortgage interest deduction. But as a single government employee, I can't really afford a $1M house on my own.

My house was $350k. Not exactly exorbitant.

How did you max out the mortgage deduction then? That maxes out at a loan of 750k.

I thought SALT and Mortgage deduction combined was capped at 10k now.

No. That got changed last minute. The SALT deduction maxes at $10k. Mortgage interest deduction is unchanged for loans under $750k. For loans over that you can only deduct interest paid on the first $750k.

Ah, thanks.

Perhaps his wording means he took the total amount he was allowed and still ended up paying 6k more (with him being in CA, I can imagine SALT being capped could account for the difference quite easily).

stessier wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 9:28 am Ah, thanks.

Perhaps his wording means he took the total amount he was allowed and still ended up paying 6k more (with him being in CA, I can imagine SALT being capped could account for the difference quite easily).

I hope that's the case, but if he only deducted $10k total between SALT and his mortgage interest, I hope he can amend his return if it winds up being over the standard deduction for his tax situation.

So our property taxes are due in April (not sure if that's the same nationwide). We moved back in October, so the first half the of year we paid for the old house, and the 2nd half the new house....

Friday I walked over to the county office and paid the 2nd installment. Yesterday I worked on our income taxes and was inputting the property tax and realized that I had paid the 2nd installment to the old house instead of the house we moved into...

Moron of the year right here. So today walked back over, filled out a form to have them transfer it and paid the difference. Meanwhile I potentially screwed it up for the buyers of our home. If the county shows their house being paid and they have an escrow account, it's a possibility their bank won't pay thinking it was already paid. I reached out to my realtor for them to reach out to the buyer with a heads up...

Our property taxes are due 5/1. If we get the big income tax bill I'm expecting on 4/16, plus a new quarterly estimated payment requirement, our bank account is going to be seriously drained.

Kraken wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 4:52 pm Our property taxes are due 5/1. If we get the big income tax bill I'm expecting on 4/16, plus a new quarterly estimated payment requirement, our bank account is going to be seriously drained.

Ours is 2 installments due in March and September or something like that. Our poperty tax alone maxes SALT. State income is just the anti-gravy.

I finished my taxes today and was surprised to find that I received my biggest refund ever. I've managed to be less than $1k away from breaking even for years, but I'm getting almost $4k back on my federal returning this year (and $900 from state). I was more than a little worried that the limits on SALT and mortgage interest deductions would hurt me this year, but I guess it was balanced out by the changes in tax brackets. I had a substantial raise last year that would have cost me more under last year's rates. In the end, I wound up with an effective tax rate of 23%...exactly the same as last year.

Still not done.

Moving (even if we didn't sell or buy a house), new job, and new tax laws mean we finally sprung for a paid tax preparer. So now we (my wife actually) are trying to compare last year with this year and find out why we owe a ton even after our estimated payments. So far it looks like our mutual funds had way more taxable gains then they have had in recent years. Which has triggered some issues with the credit for our son in college and our IRA contributions. Generally a good thing since I'd like to retire at some point but painful in the immediate term!

pr0ner wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 10:21 am

stessier wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 9:28 am Ah, thanks.

Perhaps his wording means he took the total amount he was allowed and still ended up paying 6k more (with him being in CA, I can imagine SALT being capped could account for the difference quite easily).

I hope that's the case, but if he only deducted $10k total between SALT and his mortgage interest, I hope he can amend his return if it winds up being over the standard deduction for his tax situation.

Turbotax came up and told me that I had hit the cap. I'll have to go back and validate that things are correct.

TurboTax showed me the difference between my 2017 and 2018 deductions and explained how I maxed out my SALT but never said a thing about my mortgage interest. That was deducted in full.

pr0ner wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 10:21 am

stessier wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 9:28 am Ah, thanks.

Perhaps his wording means he took the total amount he was allowed and still ended up paying 6k more (with him being in CA, I can imagine SALT being capped could account for the difference quite easily).

I hope that's the case, but if he only deducted $10k total between SALT and his mortgage interest, I hope he can amend his return if it winds up being over the standard deduction for his tax situation.

That would be hard to do as they are two totally different areas and lines on the schedule A. If you did that there is no telling what kind of other mistakes you could make.

pr0ner wrote: Wed Apr 03, 2019 8:47 am TurboTax showed me the difference between my 2017 and 2018 deductions and explained how I maxed out my SALT but never said a thing about my mortgage interest. That was deducted in full.

Nope, you're right. I went back and looked, and the portion that said was maxed out was the property tax being paid as part of the mortgage. It's just the SALT limitations that caused the tax increase.

I am sure I must have mentioned here that I work for the Federal taxing agency for about 6-7 months a year, looking at tax returns. I can tell you I have seen some crazy things done on tax returns, by individuals and by paid preparers. There is something about the tax return which brings out the stupid in people, because I have seen returns done by professionals who make hundreds of thousands of dollars that look like they were done by a 10 year old.

Some preparers are just overwhelmed, but others seek to over accommodate clients. I am happy that I just do a couple trust income tax returns and review gift tax returns. My life gets busy but not insane.

I have a bag of dice.

Getting about $1500 from the Feds and $25 from the state. Lost 2k on my itemized deductions due to the cap. Thankfully, I always overwithhold, just in case some douchebag does wack things with the tax code.

gbasden wrote: Wed Apr 03, 2019 3:27 pm

pr0ner wrote: Wed Apr 03, 2019 8:47 am TurboTax showed me the difference between my 2017 and 2018 deductions and explained how I maxed out my SALT but never said a thing about my mortgage interest. That was deducted in full.

Nope, you're right. I went back and looked, and the portion that said was maxed out was the property tax being paid as part of the mortgage. It's just the SALT limitations that caused the tax increase.

I was definitely a little concerned when you said you maxed out your mortgage deduction and then discussed your home value. Was worried you were getting boned by the tax changes more than you already are.

How much difference does the SALT deduction cap make for the someone who lives in a state with high taxes (CT in my case)? My itemized deductions decreased by almost $33k this year. If they had implemented the cap on mortgage interest, I would have been totally screwed this year...

disarm wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 11:39 am How much difference does the SALT deduction cap make for the someone who lives in a state with high taxes (CT in my case)? My itemized deductions decreased by almost $33k this year. If they had implemented the cap on mortgage interest, I would have been totally screwed this year...

I'm definitely curious how much the effective tax rate and pure dollar amounts paid in taxes changed for those of us in states with high income/property taxes.

It'going to be interesting next tax season. I will have paid the mortgage down so much that I will not be able to itemize. I will get clobbered by the estate over my bequest from Mom, si I suspect that whatever return I get from the feds will go to the local yokels.

Local yokels. Nice phrase.

They've definitely sped up refund processing - my return was accepted on Sunday and my refund is scheduled to be deposited on Monday (I already have that notification).

I heard a Cars For Kids ad on the radio. They said, "Tax season is here! Donate your car today for a deduction on your 2019 taxes!"

Technically correct but it annoyed me.

Default wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 12:33 pm It'going to be interesting next tax season. I will have paid the mortgage down so much that I will not be able to itemize. I will get clobbered by the estate over my bequest from Mom, si I suspect that whatever return I get from the feds will go to the local yokels.

Most things that are inherited are tax free. There are some things (inheriting an IRA for instance) that has tax implications. But simply inheriting cash or an asset (unless it is over the cap) shouldn't be a problem. I inherited cash, part of an IRA, part of a business and part of a house from my father when he died and the only thing I owed taxes over was cashing out the IRA.

pr0ner wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 12:51 pm Local yokels. Nice phrase.

It's been a thing for a while.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 2:40 pm I heard a Cars For Kids ad on the radio. They said, "Tax season is here! Donate your car today for a deduction on your 2019 taxes!"

Technically correct but it annoyed me.

When my business closed last year we donated a 1981 Ford F350 Dump Truck to a charity. The process was a mess, as the charity screwed things up, but it did actually sell at auction and technically we had a write off. I didn't donate it for the write off though, I donated it just to get rid of the damn thing.

Scuzz wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 2:46 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 2:40 pm I heard a Cars For Kids ad on the radio. They said, "Tax season is here! Donate your car today for a deduction on your 2019 taxes!"

Technically correct but it annoyed me.

When my business closed last year we donated a 1981 Ford F350 Dump Truck to a charity. The process was a mess, as the charity screwed things up, but it did actually sell at auction and technically we had a write off. I didn't donate it for the write off though, I donated it just to get rid of the damn thing.

Did the same with a 1999 Cougar for the local public radio station. The ad annoyed me because they are using the urgency of 2018 taxes to get you to donate a car for 2019 taxes.

Isgrimnur wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 2:44 pm

pr0ner wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 12:51 pm Local yokels. Nice phrase.

It's been a thing for a while.

yes, but not everyone is an online encyclopedia like you...

naednek wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 4:31 pm

Isgrimnur wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 2:44 pm

pr0ner wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 12:51 pm Local yokels. Nice phrase.

It's been a thing for a while.

yes, but not everyone is an online encyclopedia like you...

BEEP BOOP

Isgrimnur wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 4:36 pm
BEEP BOOP

Is that what you're gonna do?