Taxes!

[Crothian]

It's tax time in America! I'm sure many of you like myself are excited and happy to see this time of year approach. I thought it might be helpful if people have questions about taxes to have thread about it. I'm sure I'm not the only one around here that does tax returns for people professionally so there should be a few people at least that can help out and offer aid. Of course any advice one gets they should research to some degree to learn if it is right for them. Everyone's financial situation is unique but with luck we can help people with tax questions and aid people in getting a good refund!

 

[Janx]

Every year, I run H&R's tax program (because my last employer got a B2B price reduction on it) and whenever I ran through the Itemized section, it always said I was better off doing the standard deduction.

For a married guy with a mortgage and student loans, I guess it means I didn't over-borrow on the house... I usually get about $30 back, though the last few years, its been more significant.

I'd love to see the tax code simplified such that the fact that my employer deducted taxes, means I've filed and owe nothing, recieve nothing.

 

[Crothian]

Mortgages can still be deducted at times even if you are taking the standard deduction. Medical expenses and occasionally things for work at the big itemized sections I usually see that gets above the standard deductions.

The tax code gets a bit more complex each year and I don't see that changing. While simple is good if it was too simple I'd be out of a job!

edit: The credit I was referring to did not get renewed so it won't help this year.

 

[Piratecat]

I probably don't need to, but I'll make it explicit: let the buyer beware. Crothian is a friend and is awesome, but if anyone gets audited because they asked for tax advice on the internet I'm going to lauuuugh.

I'm finally going to pay a professional this year. Trying to figure out deductions and home office-y things drives me nuts.

 

[Janx]

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'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.

 

[Janx]

I probably don't need to, but I'll make it explicit: let the buyer beware. Crothian is a friend and is awesome, but if anyone gets audited because they asked for tax advice on the internet I'm going to lauuuugh.

I'm finally going to pay a professional this year. Trying to figure out deductions and home office-y things drives me nuts.

I should hope that when you get tax or legal advice from anybody that you're not paying them for that advice, that its solely for the purpose of "when you talk to YOUR guy, ask him about this, because you SHOULD be able to do it".

Rather than "my friend said it was legal, so I did it", only to find out your friend was wrong.

Sp when Crothian says I still might be able to deduct my mortgage stuff while taking the standard deduction, I am not to just "do it", but instead I should investigate into the scenarios in which that is possible and see if it applies to me.

The value from Crothian being, I previously had no clue and assumed that since they mortgage (interest actually) and loans didn't add up, that was it. I still don't know how or if it will work, but now I know to look for it (or actually consider hiring a tax nerd to optimize my taxes).

Or if DannyAlcatraz said that legally I should be able to do X (and actually lawyers seem really careful about NOT saying that if they are not actually working for that person), I should only consider that as information I should verify, and not fully rely on it.


In the case of lawyers, there's a million "can I do X" questions that lawyers don't really want to answer because as lawyers, it apparently makes them liable for making the statement if it is wrong (or misapplied).

Taxes are kind of the same thing....

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Is a one-way ticket to a country with no US extradition treaty tax deductible, if the purchase is made as part of a get-rich-quick scheme a perfectly legitimate home business?

Just, you know, hypothetically speaking, of course.

 

[NewJeffCT]

It's tax time in America! I'm sure many of you like myself are excited and happy to see this time of year approach. I thought it might be helpful if people have questions about taxes to have thread about it. I'm sure I'm not the only one around here that does tax returns for people professionally so there should be a few people at least that can help out and offer aid. Of course any advice one gets they should research to some degree to learn if it is right for them. Everyone's financial situation is unique but with luck we can help people with tax questions and aid people in getting a good refund!

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...)

 

[jefgorbach]

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...)

simple: self-publish a related PDF thereby making your related gaming reference materials, thumb drives/disks, paper, etc used in producing it deductible from whatever profits you make. (I'd avoid expensing your pc/printer simply because you should have someway to prove how you derived the business-related usage; ie a log/etc which becomes a real pain).

Further, IRC schedule-SE (self-employment income) rolls to the front page income effectively reducing your primary income, thereby reducing your Adjusted Gross Income and thus overall taxes due; double-check me on this of course.

However you run the risk of the IRS declaring your endevor a hobby and disallowed if your not profitable three out of five years.

 

[Crothian]

I probably don't need to, but I'll make it explicit: let the buyer beware. Crothian is a friend and is awesome, but if anyone gets audited because they asked for tax advice on the internet I'm going to lauuuugh.

I'm finally going to pay a professional this year. Trying to figure out deductions and home office-y things drives me nuts.

Yes, buyer beware. I'm not a CPA (yet) and I'm not going to say everything I post is 100% accurate. But with luck I can point someone in the right direction and help them learn something as well as learn something myself.

In home offices are tricky. There are certain items on a tax return that make an IRS audit a higher probability of happening and from what I'm told they are one of those. When I was taught about them I was informed to highly encourage clients that have them to keep very good records of them and to make sure they are 100% office and never used for anything else.