Taxes!

[Crothian]

what do tax guys do when its not tax season? I never understood how tax offices could afford strip mall office rental for a seasonal business.

I'm a student and I have a job that is year round. Since tax season is just a few months I can take less courses that quarter and make some good money as well as get some great training and experience. I'm with a company that once I got hired they have paid training year round and highly encourage their employees to take as much of it as they can. WE have to take a minimum of 24 hours (I think) of classes in a year.

I'll have to find which tool is cheapest this year to file with, or just do it manually. Its mostly stressing for the pain the IRS can put you through if there's a mistake than the actual process to look up numbers of various pieces of paper and write them onto a 1090.

It really depends on how complex your taxes are. Federal can be a pain, but I've found local taxes and some state taxes to be even worse.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

While simple is good if it was too simple I'd be out of a job!

With all respect, I pray for the day you can no longer afford employment in tax preparation.

 

[Crothian]

OK, the big question is - how can I deduct all the gaming supplies I purchased? How about my DDI subscription? Can I become a DMing business & write off these things as a cost of business? (Granted, with my DMing skills, it will be a long, long time before I get any revenue, let alone turn a profit...)

Aside from having your own business you can declare hobby income. But first you need to make money on a hobby, declare it, and then you can expense some thing but never more then the money you made on that hobby.

With a business you could have more expense then income and operate at a lose but it is not something I know a lot about and would not advise one to do it just so they can find a way to write off their gaming books.

 

[Pbartender]

Everyone's financial situation is unique but with luck we can help people with tax questions and aid people in getting a good refund!

Okay... Last summer, we bought a house for the first time, and am starting to look at what it takes to itemize deductions.

Up until now, we've always used the fairly quick and easy 1040A form. We've never really needed anything more complicated, since our finances have been pretty straightforward in the past. I'll likely use the 1040A one last time for this year, but I want to get some practice in with the standard 1040 (and compare it to what I get with the 1040A), and plan ahead for using it next year.

I've been looking for some basic primers on the subject, but haven't found anything useful yet. Do you know where I can find a good guide or tutorial, so to speak?

 

[Crothian]

I don't know of anything like that, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone out on the web has something like that.

 

[Pbartender]

I don't know of anything like that, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone out on the web has something like that.

Yep... There's tons of stuff on the web that claim to be "primers", but are either terribly confusticated, or overly simplified. It's hard to extract any useful information from them.

So let me just a little more specific... The major change in our lives is the new house. I need to be able to compare the standard deduction (which we've been claiming previously) with what I'd itemize now that I have a house.

What sort of major itemized deductions am I looking at? Mortgage interest and property taxes are the big two, correct? I've heard that state taxes can be deducted?

I'm not especially worried about squeezing every last penny out of my refund, but I want to make certain I understand the major itemized deductions.

 

[Janx]

Okay... Last summer, we bought a house for the first time, and am starting to look at what it takes to itemize deductions.

Up until now, we've always used the fairly quick and easy 1040A form. We've never really needed anything more complicated, since our finances have been pretty straightforward in the past. I'll likely use the 1040A one last time for this year, but I want to get some practice in with the standard 1040 (and compare it to what I get with the 1040A), and plan ahead for using it next year.

I've been looking for some basic primers on the subject, but haven't found anything useful yet. Do you know where I can find a good guide or tutorial, so to speak?

Crothian can chime in more taxingly, but as a guy with a house...

When I run H&R's TaxCut program (or TurboTax in prior years), as I recall, the stuff it prompts me for is:
interest on mortgage
student loans (interest)
home equity loans
property taxes
big purchase (car, boat, etc)
big medical expense
sales tax from regular purchases (I use the estimate, as I don't want to add up thousands of recipts)

I live in TX, so there's no state income tax. Houses are cheaper here, and I didn't over-buy, so for me, it doesn't bump me over the standard deductible

 

[Joshua Randall]

Yeah, any of the tax prep programs can let you do your taxes one way (itemize / standard, married-filing-jointly / married-filing-separately, etc.) and then also the other way and compare.

I think at this point I could probably do my taxes by hand (simply by virtue of having done them for 10+ years; I'm not a CPA or anything), but the ~$30 for a tax prep program just saves me so much aggravation. Plus, you can deduct the cost of the program. [Or at least I always do and haven't gone to jail yet.]

 

[Crothian]

Other items people itemize are medical expenses that can include doctor visits, prescription medicine, dental, eye glasses and visits, etc. The IRS has a specific list of items and some of them are things not normally covered by insurance like some elective cosmetic surgeries.

Donations in both cash and non cash items are also a good deduction. \Non cash donation that are valued at a few hundred dollars or more though are a good way to get an audit. I encourage anyone that does a good amount of non cash donations to photograph the items being donated individually and also keep a journal of what the items are, their condition, and they individual worth. When one finds him/her self in an audit there don't seem to be such a thing as too much documentation. This is based off what what Enrolled Agents have told me, I'm not qualified to be present in case of an audit.

If you are going to do taxes yourself I would suggest you to order a Pub 17 from the IRS (they are free). It has all the basic tax information in it just in case you need to look something up. Reading it is no more difficult then most RPGs manuals.

 

[Crothian]

Tomorrow is the first day the IRS will accept returns. However, if you do itemize those returns are not going to be accepted until mid February as those forms are not prepared yet.