In France, they remedy that by giving a discount to salary earners, I heard. May just be an idle talk.
My tax is not complicated to do. Now that deductions are gone, it is just a matter of typing in all the numbers I get from brokerage firms. No more AMT also made it simple. This is I needed less an hour. It took me longer to efile and print them out than doing the taxes itself.
That is indeed true. Salary earners get an automatic 10% ādĆ©duction forfaitaireā on their active income (with a cap).
Same here. And once, when our CPA realized he hadnāt gotten us a deduction for quite a few years, he backfiled as far back as possible and then reimbursed us about $6,000 out of his own pocket! He also applied for PPP funds as soon as he could and helped his clients through that process. He has been such a help in the 22 years weāve been in business.
The Colorado state forms are pretty easy. Years ago, before electronic filing, there was a way to submit via touchtone phone.
My CPAs have filed amended returns and made things right when they realize they had made mistakes on our returns as well.
They would also calculate AMT and reg taxes and pay whichever we were supposed to pay. It sure would be better if there werenāt all these special interests that made filing returns so dang complicated.
@Colorado_mom CT also used to have a phone submission for state taxes that was really easy to do, and quick. They did away with that a while agoā¦for some reason.
We mail our state tax return. We get the regular TT and would have to pay $25 for electronic submissionā¦I wonāt do that. I do suspect that eventually we will be required to do this state tax submission electronicallyā¦and when that happens, I hope there is no fee.
California has an online form and filing, but Iām doing it within my H&R Block software anyway, where everything flows through from the Federal. So I havenāt tried the online state version. They make us mail in copies of both the state and Federal forms, but we can pay online. Although we now use the standard deduction Federally, we have an big advantage itemizing for the state so I have to input all that stuff anyway.
In terms of amended returns, three years after my husband retired, I finally realized how much more we were paying in medical premiums. So I filed three years of amended returns adding that to the medical deductions and ended up getting about $1200 back altogether. Having all the info in the software made it fairly easy; just needed to print out amended Schedule Aās and 1040ās and I think one other form.
@thumper1 , we do exactly the same thing next door in MA. State refund, when it happens, isnāt a huge sum of money, so there is no rush to e-file and get it back quicker. So we mail our state returns, as do our kids, who borrow our TT to e-file federally for free.
@thumper1 You can always e-file for free on the stateās website (drs-tsc), many times Iāve just typed the info from the tt return in thereā¦a little clunky but it worksā¦
Easier to just mail it. Last year, we got our state refund LONG before our federalā¦and we mailed the state one in. Just printed it out from TT, and popped it into the mail.
I am 67 and Iāve only used an accountant one time in my life - and I had to make major changes to that return. I feel that by the time Iāve gathered up and organized all the paperwork required that Iāve done 80% of the work. My H is self employed and weāve had some fairly complicated situations, but not as complicated as some of you guys with corporations. I will probably turn to an accountant when we sell our house. I use Turbotax also.
I am one of those that has always done my own taxes. My first returns were very basic; a W2 and the standard deduction. Over the years they have gotten more complicated and more forms needed. Now my returns seem like the great American novel. I switched to TurboTax when I couldnāt get all the forms I needed at the post office.
Filling out the forms is the easy part. The math involved in a return is trivial although the IRS seems to have fun making you fill out 20 lines where 2 could suffice. It is understanding the tax code that is the hardest part That and gathering all the data.
To make the right decisions throughout the year, you need to have some understanding of the appropriate sections of the tax code. By the time you start to fill out the forms, it is typically too late to make changes that would lessen your taxes. Therefore that tax code understanding is very important to reduce your taxes by making the correct decisions throughout the year.
I use the interview method with TurboTax for areas where I am unfamiliar the tax code. I will then do some further searching to read to complete my knowledge of what I need to know.
We have simple returns ā W-2 and 1099 only. H (accounting major long ago) does them, and I gather the info and assemble deductible contributions (or at least used to!). Used TT until they required an upgraded version for something and H refused to use it any more on principle.
I think you-know-what would have to freeze over before H paid an accountant.
Our CPAās office just called. Theyāre helping reconstruct the basis of some stock we inherited from my FIL. So glad itās them, not us! Whatever basis they can calculate will be much better than $0!
Iām the one who worked out the FMV of my momās condo on her DOD for her CPA to put into the documents. After watching my husband sell his parentsā house in Connecticut, selling our house in Illinois, buying our new house in California, and selling momās condo in Illinoisā¦I was used to the concept. There were very few comparables so I put together a document supporting my findings. The CPA accepted it without question, and my brother and I were able to claim a decent loss in our returns, which carried over for a few years. The CPA might have just used the sales price, which would have disadvantaged us.
Of course, not all CPAs are created equal. Just got off the phone with my cpa who told me our income is low enough for 2020 that I can deduct my $5000+ IRA as a traditional IRA and save over $3000 in taxes and get a bigger stimulus payment.
YayāI intend to follow her advice and am fine with getting to keep more of my $$$. She happily did the tedious work of recreating the basis of the stocks.
Well, I am reviving the thread for tax time.
Our accountant sent a letter that they were raising prices and they now want you to download info to them.
I gathered all my accounts info and signed up for online access on ones I did not have access to online. Some were from many years ago or inherited ones. I think that was the hardest part.
I then jumped into a download version TT premier from Fidelity 3 days ago. I contacted TT once with a question and it was very helpful. Now there are a couple K1ās to arrive in March. The TT involves a slight learning curve, but I suspect next year will be easier.
The hardest part on paper was a gift tax form. Took forever to figure it out. I realized there was probably something I was clearly missing and D helped me with it in a second.
Good luck this year. This group was very helpful and encouraging.
Rockymtnhigh2, My accountant is having trouble with the gift form. What makes it so difficult?
That gift form is a doozie. But itās not part of your tax filing. Itās done separately.
Our financial planner helped us complete it. Not sure why it has to be so complicated.
We do our own taxes.
Last year turned out to be very crazy around tax filing time. Both my parents passed away within weeks of each other and I had to come back from that and finish our taxes and file them, on the last day. I was supposed to file a gift tax form (money we gifted D) but TT doesnāt do it and I completely forgot about it after. Anyone know if I can file it this year?