I hate fucking taxes. Just stayed on a call with Fidelity because I overpaid my 401k by a few dollars and they don’t know how to set a reimbursement. Now I’m on a call with Anthem because they don’t know why I never got my 1099-SA. Fuck. I really fucking hate taxes.
Just file for an extension, it’ll give you until October (?) to complete your taxes with the proper paperwork.
Few years ago, I estimated my pay/taxes because a former employer never mailed me my W2 since they just sucked. I’m foggy on all of the specifics, but I remember getting a letter saying they couldn’t verify the info from that W2, and that I wouldn’t get my refund until it was verified.
Got the company to send me my actual W2, filed a revised return, and ended up owning like $1700, even though it had told me before the letter I’d get a refund of like $3k. Annoying as fuck, but ultimately my fault, I should’ve just waited for the W2 and filed for an extension in the meantime.
Following year, I got a letter from the IRS saying they owed me $1300 that was never released due to my tax shenanigans the previous year.
Moral of the story: just file for the extension, save yourself the anxiety and headache.
What? No. They only know the amount you asked them to withhold, and that could get you in trouble if you specify dependents then tell everyone you don’t have any or something. Also if someone is living in your house, making less than 4700 for the entire year, they can be claimed as a dependent, which means you don’t even have to have kids. How would your work even know?
Most of that stuff is pretty optional, and that’s for automatic withholding info. You can correct this all on your tax return. This form is more for you to have convenience during return time, and it even says you can exempt yourself from the form for multiple conditions. I don’t see why you need to get paid in cash still, like your original comment.
I mean, that’s essentially what our taxes are. Things vary based on tax brackets, state, dependents/spouses, and total earnings of course, but we all have a base tax.
The hard part of taxes is usually deductions, or when you start having things like investments or small businesses.
No, you’re right that it’s extremely complicated. But the complexity doesn’t come from the base rates. You’re likely thinking of the process as a whole instead of the starting point.
Mind you, if you routinely fudge your taxes, they will eventually notice something strange, or hit you with a randomized audit. Then, whoops, we found something! Better take a closer look at all your past filings too…
They don’t actually know the final amount, but they do have an independent expectation for certain items.
If your job withholds income tax then it is paid quarterly to the government, so they know how much you made and how much taxes you should be paying.
If you win a large sum of money in the stock market or gambling at a casino then the broker or management company reports a tax bill to the IRS. The same happens for large early withdrawals of retirement funds.
They also know information based on previous returns, like how many kids you have or if you own a home.
They may not know it down to the dollar amount you’ll be paying because of the complexity of the US tax code and the deductions you’ll claim. For example, the government has no record of you purchasing a $600 electric car charger but you can claim that on your taxes to reduce your tax liability. That being said, if you under-report the amount you made at your job they will almost surely audit you if the number reported by your employer doesn’t match the number you provide.
In many countries, the government does have a record of you purchasing that electric car charger as long as you ask the seller to include your tax number in the receipt - which you need to do if you want to file it - and it all comes automatically pre-filled in my tax deductions. Its become really easy to do taxes, it’s literally 3 clicks for most people.
I got audited a few years back. I claimed something that set off a red flag–deducted tuition for a grad program as a business expense.
I freaked out at first because I thought I must have messed something up or that they knew I messed something up.
What I discovered is that: at the end of the day these folks are probably just as annoyed as you that they got another “audit” in their pile. And being flagged doesn’t mean you are wrong. It means they need more information before they can decide.
I wrote a detailed response with the actual flow chart from their own guidance, I circled the decisions on the chart, and then provided proof of each decision in my letter. Basically I held their hand and showed them I could legit deduct it.
They were like “oh, cool thanks! You’re good. Actually, you could have itemized x if you have receipts for it and you’d get a bigg r deduction if you wanted to amend”
That’s when I realized they don’t really check everyone’s taxes at all. They have a system that flags certain situations for further review. I guess, in my case, people lie or mess up this tuition deduction a lot so they double check.
Had to reset my password to get my student financial aid payments and Aidvantage’s systems are apparently garbage so it too literally DAYS for me to get my reset email. That was just one bullshit step I had to take in order to try and finish my taxes.
The government should know all that info anyways, so why do I need to provide it exactly? Because TurboTax, H&R Block, etc. have lobbied to make our taxes a pain in the ass in the hopes that more people pay to use their shitty proprietary software.
In civilized countries, they just sent you a form, you check it, and send it back. Done.
In the Greatest Country on Earth, it’s a confusing shitshow where you have to chase down all the information and if you get anything wrong it can ruin your life.
Interest is income, so your W-2 won’t be enough to account for that. You’ll also need to go to any banks, taxable brokerage accounts, etc, because that money will impact your taxable income. Still not a ton of work, but it’s still more than just W-2 + standard deduction.
Most people aren't going to have anywhere near enough taxable investment income for that to matter.
I think I got about $.87 in interest payments from bank accounts in the past year. I don't think that's going to make a huge difference in taxable income.
Let’s say you have $10k in cash (typical emergency fund) and get 4% on it (relatively competitiv; e.g. Ally gives 4.25%), that’s $400 in interest (not including compounding), which is a reportable amount of income. If you’re doing something clever or have a bit more cash for some reason (e.g. saving for a house), you could easily get into more interesting amounts of money.
Yea I appreciate the dude trying to make sure people don’t forget stuff and get fucked by the irs but he’s a bit privileged thinking we’re all as well off as he is.
I’m not suggesting that at all, I’m merely suggesting that you review your interest in your bank account since it could be a number the IRS could be interested in. It all depends on how much savings you have, what interest rate you get, etc, but even some checking accounts can have enough interest to be interesting.
I had like $6k savings until I did my taxes and apparently everything I saved up was how much I owed the tax man. I thought I had actually gotten ahead but turns out that was an illusion lol
It’s just an example. You can get semi-interesting numbers with just regular cash flow, depending on what kind of interest your accounts get. Let’s say you make $60k/year and your money sits in your account on average for 5 days. So that’s essentially the same as $800-900 (($60k / 26) * (5/14)) earning whatever your interest rate is on your account. That’s something like $20-40 for 2-5%. That money counts.
That’s fair. My point though is that with higher IRS funding, poorer people are probably going to get audited more, and if you’re only using your W-2, you’re probably missing something and could get caught with an audit.
Other things that could factor in:
bank account bonuses - i.e. that $100 to sign up for an account or whatever (usually doesn’t include credit card rewards, but that can also depend)
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