Octopus Overlords

Money came in ... and it's gone.

Met with our guy yesterday. No estimate yet on what we're going to owe since I'm still waiting on a K1 and daycare paperwork but got most of it out of the way.

And....done. Effective tax rate - 11.90%. Total pages for Federal / WI State / SC State including all worksheets - 438. Total time required to gather needed documents, work through Turbo Tax, and file - about 6 hours. Total days from start to finish - about 20 (stupid Schedule K1).

Finally worked through all my issues: my new mortgage company got me my 2nd 1098 to cover the period before the merger of my previous mortgage servicer and my employer screwed up the W-2 so had to hound them until they issued a W2C. All in all got a minimal amount back -- as designed -- so I'm pretty happy with that outcome.

Crap, it's time to start thinking about taxes again. I know we're going to owe bigtime this year so it's hard to get motivated.

Ugh. $900 owed to the Feds, $200 to the Peoples Republic of NJ. I guess it could have been worse...

I am running out of mortgage interest deduction. Soon I may owe the fed every year. Blah. I barely got a return from them this year, and I think it was mostly from charitable giving.

Although I'd rather have no mortgage and owe some taxes than pay interest on a mortgage.

I delayed doing my taxes because I assumed I was going to be humped. Took the time to enter data today, and discovered that the Feds owe me $200 and the State of NJ owes me $1000. I overruled my normal refusal to do anything that requires time, but this year I had to eat some large medical bills, which helped the state stuff. I'm sure the universe will ensure a minimum of $1300 in car bills within the next month.

killbot737 wrote: Although I'd rather have no mortgage and owe some taxes than pay interest on a mortgage.

Just got our numbers back, we owe a lot more to Fat Sam than last year, much of it due to a refi. Can't say I like writing them a bigger check but at the the end of the day it means I made and kept more in 2013 than 2012. I hope.

Same here. My wife and I were just discussing the other night how it's nice we're accumulating some savings . . . turns out we were just saving for the Feds. $25K owed; 24% effective tax rate. Ugh.

Congratudolences.

WTF? How do you find out in late March that you owe $25 grand?!?

Somebody needs to fill out a new W-4.

Done! We owed this year, just over $800. I suspected it would be the case going in though, so I'd already managed expectations accordingly.

I used to get my taxes done in February, but the last few years I've really come to loathe the process, so I've tended to put it off. Got them done, though. Whew!

Odin wrote:Somebody needs to fill out a new W-4.

Someone needs a mortgage and more kids.

RunningMn9 wrote:

Odin wrote:Somebody needs to fill out a new W-4.

Someone needs a mortgage and more kids.

Someone does NOT need any more mortgage or any more kids, thank you very much. Plenty on both fronts.

Someone needs to not ignore his tax guy's instructions to pay estimated tax payments.

Long story short, I had been in a partnership which necessitated me making quarterly estimated tax payments since I wasn't a W-4, salaried employee. I left the partnership for a new job at the end of 2012 and returned to the ranks of the salaried, W-4 tax paying workforce. When my tax preparer did my 2012 taxes and gave me the estimated tax payment vouchers for 2013, I ignored them since I was now having taxes taken out automatically through payroll every pay period. I continued to receive payments from the old partnership since they were paying down my accrued capital account, but those payments were tax free (that money had already been taxed when I originally earned it). BUT, I didn't account for the fact that I was also getting a guaranteed payment on continued partnership revenue through part of 2013, even after I left the partnership. That money was all untaxed, and that's why the tax guy had told me to make estimated payments.

In my defense, my tax preparer and I never had a conversation about this, and it would have been nice for him to give me an explanation given the change in job status. But really, it's all on me. Also, my with holdings at my new job were a little light, too, so that contributed to the issue (I would have owed a couple grand anyway, even without the estimated tax screw up).

In the end, having to cough up a check in that amount is definitely not cool, but it's not earth-shattering either. I felt like we were a little more flush than we should have been and had a feeling something wasn't quite right with our accounts. Luckily, for us, we're generally pretty financially conservative, so it's not like we were going to head out on a spending spree.

I cannot imagine what kind of numbers you are talking that you owed an extra $25K. I think I had an effective federal income tax rate of less than 8% this year. Courtesy of a soul-crushing mortgage, two kids and getting to live in the Property Tax paradise that is the State of NJ.

Ugh. Finally hit the AMT to the tune of $37 from last year's bonus and my wife's S Corporation earning $314 instead of losing money. At least the IRS owes me $5,576 and Illinois owes me $501. Effective rates are 17.01% Federal and 5% Illinois. That's up 3.17% over the past few years (Federal was 15.84% in 2011 and Illinois was 3% in 2010).

This year, I'm going to keep better track of those medical bills. Diabetes supplies are very expensive.

Finished mine last night. Lost my eldest as a deduction, since she turned 18 in December last year, and isn't in college yet so no tuition deductions yet.

My return came out really low this year, and it was troubling me, until I remembered in the shower this morning that our mortgage had been sold and I left several thousand dollars in taxes and interest off of the return. A frantic search this morning found the missing docs and I am now back in more familiar return territory. Glad I held off on e-filing...that low number was bugging me and I wanted to go over everything again to make sure I didn't make a mistake.

First pass done and we owe about $3k less than I thought we would (similar boat to Kurth, with partnership income and not making estimated payments - I hate the extra payment they ask for on tax day for the first quarter). Will finish up tonight.

We ended up filing for an extension and sending in my estimated balance due. Now I'm hoping that I overestimated a little because I sure as hell can't afford to give them any more.

Got $9k back from the feds (due to credit for installing solar) but had to pay the state $3,900).

Jaymann wrote:Got $9k back from the feds.

I just paid out roughly $9k. Give me back my money!

Ugh, almost $5,000.00 going out with the extensions. I'm pretty sure I could find better things to do with it than "they" can.

Just sent off a stack of returns the last week. Life went crazy and I hadn't filed 1065s or 1040 since 2007. My effective tax rate for 2008 was over 30%. Needless to say I am in a massive hole. I would celebrate only owing $25K. I will be on SS by the time I can even hope to pay off my debt.

Do you get a nice deduction for that?

Finally finished mine today. Ended up around 700 in the hole which all things considered isn't that bad.

Kraken wrote:Do you get a nice deduction for that?

Me? Deduction for what? Not filing for five years?

That's crazy. I can only imagine the penalties they are going to tack on top of that.

Octavious wrote:That's crazy. I can only imagine the penalties they are going to tack on top of that.

Yep, I am screwed. The only saving grace is how hard it is to get blood from a turnip. I am hoping to use hardship/payment plan for all I can muster to dig as far out as I can before I die. The only other option is to throw my hands in the air, quit working, and become another leech on society which I can't bring myself to do.

Done! I'm getting back about $4500 with an effective tax rate of 16% between Fed and State.

I appreciate the money, but once again note the relatively ridiculous tax rate on someone earning quite good money.

gbasden wrote:Done! I'm getting back about $4500 with an effective tax rate of 16% between Fed and State.

I appreciate the money, but once again note the relatively ridiculous tax rate on someone earning quite good money.

Try going into a small business for yourself. You will pay that much just in self employment taxes before you even get to income taxes.

Rip wrote:Just sent off a stack of returns the last week. Life went crazy and I hadn't filed 1065s or 1040 since 2007. My effective tax rate for 2008 was over 30%. Needless to say I am in a massive hole. I would celebrate only owing $25K. I will be on SS by the time I can even hope to pay off my debt.

You haven't filed a return in 7 years?

You can start bitching about the government again when you're paid up on those taxes.

Public Service Announcement: ALWAYS file your taxes. The statute of limitations for tax offenses expires 3 years after filing unless you defraud the US, willfully evade taxes, assist in tax fraud or willfully fail to file and pay tax. Then you have to avoid getting caught for 6 years after filing.

So if you just made a mistake on your timely filed 2010 tax return, your mistakes would be forgiven as of today. If you were really bad in your timely filed 2007 tax return, you're free to carry on.

But if you fail to file, you let the government go after you for taxes forever. Not filing your taxes is like leaving a loaded gun on your nightstand. The penalties and interest levied for a return 6 years ago will typically at least double the pain.

Ya they don't f around. The one guy at work had the money being directly taken out of hia paycheck.

Only took 3 years but we finally figured out how to be married with a house and not screw up our taxes. Came through with a teeny refund.

Zarathud wrote: ...unless you defraud the US...

So if you just made a mistake on your timely filed...

I'm assuming the difference between the two is in the eye of the Auditor?

Teggy wrote:Only took 3 years but we finally figured out how to be married with a house and not screw up our taxes. Came through with a teeny refund.

Any suggestions you'd like to share? I'm headed that way within the next year.

My current method is to claim zero and not worry about the specifics until February when I file for my refund.

stessier wrote: You haven't filed a return in 7 years?

Yeah.. boggle. Not filing a return feels to me like breaking into my neighbors' house and stealing their stuff. I can imagine doing it, but the circumstances would have to be pretty dire. That said, I've been getting refunds every year, for as long as I can remember, so I guess it would be more like burning down my own house.