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Good point, state income tax can definitely swing things toward itemizing. I'm so used to living in a state with no income tax that I forget to take that into account.
american opportunity credit rocks
dolla dolla
Yes she can. If you're using the computer and you are importing last years return, it should do it automatically (does for me in uFile). If not, then you can put in the amounts on your 2009 Notice of Assessment into the correct boxes on your 2010 return.
Its not a huge deal if I can't claim it, it was for charity after all, but if I can I would like to. Thanks in advance.
"You can choose to deduct sales taxes on motor vehicles instead of state income taxes if you itemize deductions on your tax return and the sales taxes are greater than your state income taxes."
and
Auto registration fees that qualify as personal property taxes are entered in the Itemized Deduction section of the program, and are reported on line 8 of Schedule A, Itemized Deductions, as a tax.
So even though I leased the car, it looks like (the recipt here is funny and its been awhile since I've looked at it) that I paid 1551.17 in taxes, can claim about $200 in registration fees.
Am I putting too much thought into this? should I just take what I says I can get and run with it? I should add I am a 24 year old College student with less then 20k income.
Deductible personal property taxes are those based only on the value of personal property such as a boat or car. The tax must be charged to you on a yearly basis, even if it is collected more than once a year or less than once a year.
Even if you do itemize, I think deducting medical expenses, for those paid with a flex spending plan(since it is paid with pretax dollars) would not work.
As noted in the American Opportunity Credit post, I don't know that it's necessary to keep education bills, if you're in grad school or beyond 5 years of undergrad, and are not itemizing.
Question: I took the Making Work Pay credit last year, and got a large refund benefit from it. The fact that it's still available, is only to allow people who didn't specifically claim it last year, to do so now, right? Am I required to claim it even if it seems to not make any difference on my refund, and I claimed it last year?
I claimed the American Opportunity credit last year and got ~300ish in my refund for it, when I shouldn't have because it was for grad school. Is the penalty just interest, or is there a further penalty on incorrectly claiming it?
The Making Work Pay credit was offered in 2009 and is offered again for 2010. You can claim it when you file your return. Basically, you were given a bit of the credit every pay period when you received your paycheck. It's an offset against your withholding. Your return should reflect this.
I'll get some more information on claiming the wrong credit.
So I may have taken lifetime learning last year, but I certainly know that I included books etc. So, yay: I get to take the credit this year, balls: I have to figure out an amended report for last year, which hopefully is just the carved out portion for non-tuition expenses.
Q: From the IRS FAQ for lifetime learning-
A.14. Generally, the credit is available only for payments of qualified tuition and related expenses that cover an academic period beginning in the same calendar year as the year in which payment is made. (An academic period begins on the first day of classes, and does not include periods of orientation, counseling, or vacation.) An exception, however, allows a parent or student to claim a Lifetime Learning Credit for payments of qualified tuition and related expenses made during the calendar year to cover an academic period that begins in January, February, or March of the following taxable year. Because the Lifetime Learning Credit does not apply to expenses paid before July 1, 1998, this exception does not apply to tuition paid before that date to cover academic periods beginning before or after that date.
I take this to mean, that I could claim payments made in December, for this January, even though the class is for the current tax year, and claiming a similar December 09 payment for January 2010 classes last tax year was also proper.
Also you are correct about the tuition paid in advance of when the academic period begins.
Sweet, sounds like I may be able to let go of the 2010 tax return, if all I did wrong was add about $200 of expenses out of $3000ish total claimed. So, like $20 worth of my refund last time.
And yay, checking my return from last year, it was definitely Lifetime Learning, so the only hiccup is the extra $200 or so that I claimed from books last time.
Turns out, according to the rep on the phone, that there is an issue if you have taken the 2008 First-Time Homebuyer Credit when you filed your 2008 taxes (this is the one where you can take up to $7500 max depending on the purchase value of your home and have to pay back up to $500 in additional tax per tax year starting in 2010 for the next 15 years). Apparently the government cannot figure out how to process this additional tax and are delaying refunds to those that have it until they can figure it out.
Now I have to wait until April 8th to see if they can get this straightened out for everybody that took this credit two years ago and if I still do not get my direct deposit by then I need to call them and ask for a referral to expedite the processing of my refund. Total BS; I got a medical bill I need to pay with this money and is a freaking downer to check my account and not see my refund there every Friday. Ended up sending e-mails to my Congress peoples letting them know the above mess.
Anybody else here dealing with this same kind of nonsense?
Steam: ani_game_bum
Well, that sounds like a huge pain. I looked it up, and it sounds like there isn't really anything you can do, except wait. I guess it's good that at least acknowledge the problem...
You can request it here. http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=149373,00.html
Other options would be taking out a loan to pay for it, using a credit card, or attempting to file for an Offer in Compromise.
Did TurboTax make sure to claim all the credits you're eligible for?
At this point, I could just lump the whole thing together but I don't have any idea how or if they reported it for the deduction and haven't been able to get an SSN from either of them, which I assume I'd need in place of an EIN to report it. It's only a couple thousand dollars at the most, in cash and personal checks, but there's a possibility it might affect whether or not we qualify for some credits.
I've been holding off on filing because of this, but I can't do that much longer. What should I do in this situation?
Well, this isn't really as bad as it sounds. You basically have 2 choices:
Technically you're supposed to report it, but it's really your call. If the friend doesn't report it, it's unlikely the IRS would ever find out.
And you don't need their SSNs to report the income; it's them that would need yours to take the deduction. Do they even have your wife's SSN?
I suppose the other option would be to file your return without it, and then amend it later if you find out that your wife's friend reported it.
I say this more to be comforting about the likelihood that reporting it will affect much than anything.
I now need to wait till Monday to finish because I don't have my daycare's EIN. Even without deducted childcare expenses I've got a nice return headed my way. Wheeee.
So yay not owing taxes, but what the hell are tax credits?
That's my laymans understanding, anyway.
also withholding is usually a good idea so you don't owe at the end of the year, but if you're getting more back in credits than what you owed from the lack of withholding, then you probably wouldn't have to file anyway. If you start making more than $9,350, you should start withholding taxes.
I do make more than 9350, but I also have a ton of deductions which helped bring me to zero.
Once you make over a certain amount (on a W-2) you MUST withhold taxes or you will pay a penalty at the end of the year.
The idea that you're giving them more money than you're required to is the concept of having higher withholding than you'd need to, so they would give it back to you in the form of a refund (with no interest). On the other side, if you do not pay them enough in withholding, they assess a penalty on you.
Just be mindful of how much you make and how many credits you will qualify for at the end of the year, or you may end up owing more than you should. It's just a caution, that's all.
When you say that you filled out a 1099-DIV, you mean in the tax software you're using, right? Because you should have received a 1099-DIV from the bank. Out of curiousity, what software are you using to fill out your return?
Anyway, since you have less than $300 total in foreign tax paid, you shouldn't even need to fill out form 1116, which is where you would need to enter the country/countries, etc. You should be able to put $56 directly on 1040 line 47. See the first page of the 1116 instructions if you have any questions, but hopefully that helps.
I'm using TaxAct, and I'm putting in the info from the 1099-div the bank sent me. The program is saying I might have an issue not because of no 1166, which it is cool with, but because I'm not filling out part of the 1099-div that I don't remember seeing before. Screenshot:
If I leave zeroes in there at the end it isn't happy about that. Can I get away with leaving them with zeroes since the foreign tax is so small? Thanks, I appreciate it.
Interesting. It's just weird because as long as you don't have any federal tax withheld (box 4), the 1099-DIV doesn't need to go to the IRS, all that matters is that the proper amounts are carried over to the 1040. I'm wondering - can you leave them blank? Cause generally, when there are lines on a tax return that should be 0 or are not applicable, leaving them blank is fine. But maybe TaxAct doesn't like that. When it says that you might have an issue, is it just a warning? Cause if so, you should be fine leaving them blank/0. Good luck!
Also, you should be able to choose "Passive income", since that's what these dividends should be.
This year I started out using turbotax since they sent the most recent email reminder. I double checked some of my taxes in taxact since the turbotax refund amount seemed high (getting 2k back vs oweing 1k last year, which ended up being the same in both) and I think I like the turbotax interface more. With taxact I feel like by default they asked a lot more questions for exemptions and credits that I didn't qualify for. You can skip them but it's not intuitive. Turbotax had more/better popup boxes before entering a new line of questions so it was easier to tell if you should skip a questions series before starting it.