US Taxes?

So out of curiousity, who amongst the US residents here has already files their taxes for tax year 2011?

If you have, how did you do? Did you hit the lotto or have to pay the man? If you haven't, are you going to soon, are you going to wait until the 15 April deadline or do you just not care?

I filed mine today and for the first time in years I'm pretty happy...

Let's try and keep all complaints about messed up the US tax system is to a dull roar if we can, not tying to start a flame war here.

Already filed, already received the check. Our preparer did e-file and direct deposit.
Not too bad, couple of grand back.

Filed as soon as had all the documents. I use Tax Act, have tried virtually all the tax programs and settled on Tax Act 4 years ago.

Fed refund already a week in the bank. Got notice that state had been accepted but haven't got the money yet.

Refunds up about 10% this year, so yeah, doing well.

Did mine a couple days after receiving my W2s got just a few dollars more than last year. enough to buy a couple IMacs

We'll file on the deadline. We'll also pay. We always do. It's calculated, I don't like giving the government an interest free loan.

We have an appointment with our preparer for the first week in March. Our goal is always to be as close to neutral and owe nothing/get nothing back from what FedGov collects during the year. I don't like giving interest free loans to FedGov so it's sort of an ongoing game for me. The closer I get to zero dollars owed and zero dollars refunded, the better I feel. Unfortunately, I've never scored double zeros yet.

Got our appointment in March. I'm hoping that we end up even or getting a little back, definitely don't like paying anymore than I already have..

The past coupe of years have been pretty good getting nearly zero on Fed and getting back like $20 or something on State..

XJ-linux said:

We have an appointment with our preparer for the first week in March. Our goal is always to be as close to neutral and owe nothing/get nothing back from what FedGov collects during the year. I don't like giving interest free loans to FedGov so it's sort of an ongoing game for me. The closer I get to zero dollars owed and zero dollars refunded, the better I feel. Unfortunately, I've never scored double zeros yet.

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I did that for years, always owing or getting back $20 or less. It worked well. When I got married and started a job where the overtime varied my salary widely it went to heck. I've been overpaying upfront for the last few years to offset the vagaries of my overtime and now that my wife is both unemployed & a student it seems the tax breaks have started to kick in. I probably also helped that I could still claim my youngest and she qualified as a student as well.

How does this work?!

I'm genuinely interested... Do you guys pay TOO MUCH tax during the year, and therefore are entitled to claim it back?

If that's the case, why doesn't the Man sort it so you pay the right amount of tax from the off? We largely get it right in the UK, but I still hear of people filling out tax returns. I'm in the military so there's no chance of me paying too much tax.

Apologies if this a daft/ignorant question.

I understand the whole interest free loan thing. On the other hand with today's interest rates I probably would only save about $20 over the year if I balanced at zero net taxes and stuck the difference in savings dutifully every payday.
Doing the refund thing I get a couple of grand in Feb to Mar right at the time I plan minor projects around the house. Works out well and I don't sweat floating the govt a little extra.

EDIT: @Chuckoir -- not too sure about taxes in the UK, but in US we have a lot of different deductions that can be applied. So you can't just go to a simple table and said I made ___ so my tax will be ___. Upfront in withholdings I claim standard deductions but when I file I claim Mortgage and Charitable contributions, both of which drive my taxes much lower than standard would be, which is how I end up overpaying.

Razormac said:

EDIT: @Chuckoir -- not too sure about taxes in the UK, but in US we have a lot of different deductions that can be applied. So you can't just go to a simple table and said I made ___ so my tax will be ___. Upfront in withholdings I claim standard deductions but when I file I claim Mortgage and Charitable contributions, both of which drive my taxes much lower than standard would be, which is how I end up overpaying.

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Our (US) tax code is a mess. Largely because of various deductions that were put into tax code to do things like 'stimulate small business growth' or 'stimulate investment in XXXXXXX'. In the end it's created a tax law that requires specialists to fully understand (and I know people who worked at the IRS and will freely admit they don't know ALL the nuances of the code). Although, I should be happy with that I suppose.. my wife's an accountant, who specializes in tax.

The basic idea is this, you set your withholdings, and your employer pays the IRS based on that withholding throughout the year. At the end of the year, if you've paid in too much (and many people do) you get a cheque from the government for your overages.

It's not really about getting it "right." The tax system can be VERY confusing, even tax lawyers get things messed up. The more claims you can get in a year, the more chances that it can be adjusted when it comes time to file. Dependency can change things, work charges, transportation, investment variations, so many things can vary that you can't have a one way for everyone, or a pay as you go system. That's why some people end up owing money, and some get money back. Since no one can know what they will be entitled to claim by tax time from the beginning of the year, there is our system that checks for how much you are suppose to pay in taxes, compared to how much you are suppose to pay after all the deductions have been added. With so many variations, it's pretty much impossible to have a system that goes 1 year where someone is either owes 0 and is owed 0. I believe this can be different for salaries though.

We have an appointment this friday, and are expected to get back ~4k total. If the guy hadn't been booked, we would've done it last week.

iggibar said:

I believe this can be different for salaries though.

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It can be, but there are always variations.. interest earned, bonuses, money made on stock transactions, tax paid on auto purchases, change in dependent eligibility status, etc, etc, etc, etc.

I hate taxes.

This year is going to be my first time filing for a capital gains tax. I'm still confused on how the differentiate between a companies stock that I have bought stocks in varying from ~3 months to longer than a year. If I sell a portion of the stocks, is it short-term or long-term gains? Does it go to an automatic maximum of short-term's tax rate? I'm sure it's in the Etrade tax paper work, but that stuff might as well be written in Japanese for me. I don't really need to know to get these done, but I just want to know so I can understand and calculate the total gains on my own in the future.

iggibar said:

This year is going to be my first time filing for a capital gains tax. I'm still confused on how the differentiate between a companies stock that I have bought stocks in varying from ~3 months to longer than a year. If I sell a portion of the stocks, is it short-term or long-term gains? Does it go to an automatic maximum of short-term's tax rate? I'm sure it's in the Etrade tax paper work, but that stuff might as well be written in Japanese for me. I don't really need to know to get these done, but I just want to know so I can understand and calculate the total gains on my own in the future.

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All of that is the reason the small amount of "play" I do in the Stock Market I do using a Roth IRA set up for that purpose. Whether it goes up or down it runs off of already taxed money so no Capital Gains to pay.

Razormac said:

All of that is the reason the small amount of "play" I do in the Stock Market I do using a Roth IRA set up for that purpose. Whether it goes up or down it runs off of already taxed money so no Capital Gains to pay.

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I sort of do the same. I have an online accout that I sack money away into after taxes and then either use it as an emegrgency fund or buy stocks with it. I'vce done both and not really had any issues. I haven't sold any stocks yet so I've not had to deal with it on that side.

Filed as soon as had all the documents. I use Tax Act, have tried virtually all the tax programs and settled on Tax Act 4 years ago.

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Same here. I like it because I can use the on line version for free (and even eFile for free) or I can download the pay version and run it in a Windows VM.

As far as refunds go, I'm with XJ. I try to keep things balanced so that I either owe a few bucks or get back a few.

Razormac said:

All of that is the reason the small amount of "play" I do in the Stock Market I do using a Roth IRA set up for that purpose. Whether it goes up or down it runs off of already taxed money so no Capital Gains to pay.

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I always thought you had to have money in a Roth IRA until a certain age(59 and 1/2) to be eligible for a tax free withdrawal, and/or needed it in there for 5 or more years? Is this wrong?

iggibar said:

I always thought you had to have money in a Roth IRA until a certain age(59 and 1/2) to be eligible for a tax free withdrawal, and/or needed it in there for 5 or more years? Is this wrong?

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That is true, but the money doesn't actually leave the Roth (at least for tax purposes) when you buy stocks, the stocks become part of the Roth holding.
If I were to transfer them or the money to another account it would be a distribution, and potentially tax or penalty applied if I didn't meet the requirements.

I haven't filed yet. One investment company is always late with 1099s, even though they are supposed to send them out by the end of January. I don't know how they get away with it year after year. I usually get a small refund from the State, even though I claim more exemptions than I'm allowed. I don't know how I get away with that either. I try to end up owing Uncle Sam a few hundred, or up to a thousand, just so there's no penalty to pay.