Retail numbers coming in, and Taxes

[Oh Shoot]

....I know that it is non taxable on receipt, but the IRS website says not to add it to gross, why is the software asking for it? I dont know. ..

 

On that point, I don't know either. I know that if you go through my TaxAct step by step it has you enter everything, but then it simply doesn't use some of it for actual taxable income totals if it's not actually taxable.. Or your program is actually in error, couldn't say.

 

But anyway, glad you seem to have found the handle however you go about it, that's the main thing.

 

- OS

[npgunner]

On that point, I don't know either. I know that if you go through my TaxAct step by step it has you enter everything, but then it simply doesn't use some of it for actual taxable income totals if it's not actually taxable.. Or your program is actually in error, couldn't say.

 

But anyway, glad you seem to have found the handle however you go about it, that's the main thing.

 

- OS

I noticed TurboTax has done the same to me in the past.  Asks for a lot of information that hasn't always carried through and been put on the final forms.  I've always figured since it was smarter than me, it used it somehow when searching for deductions and etc.

[Guest TankerHC]

I noticed TurboTax has done the same to me in the past.  Asks for a lot of information that hasn't always carried through and been put on the final forms.  I've always figured since it was smarter than me, it used it somehow when searching for deductions and etc.

 

To check I loaded the disc from Turbo 2012. On the bottom of the income entries for pensions is doesn't have anything. On the bottom of the same entry for this year, and I didnt notice this, in bold letters it says "Do not enter VA Pension Benefits". I need to start paying closer attention. 

[RobertNashville]

I noticed TurboTax has done the same to me in the past.  Asks for a lot of information that hasn't always carried through and been put on the final forms.  I've always figured since it was smarter than me, it used it somehow when searching for deductions and etc.

Turbo Tax and all other tax prep software (as will most human preparers) will ask a LOT of questions because the answers will dictate what actually does need to be reported. One of the advantages of using the software or a good preparer is that they will ask the right questions! :)

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I've mostly used turbotax since the 1980s but used other brands like tax act a couple years when turbotax did things that made me mad like the time they tried to copy protect the software.

Can't recall if the tax software that ran on C64 in the early 1980"s was turbo or some other brand. Had a daisywheel printer would use on the C64 and kaypro (along with several dot matrix and an HP Plotter). The daisywheel would print on tax forms but it was tricky getting the paper lined up and helped to have several copies of the forms so you could just keep feeding it forms until one would accidentally line up and print correctly.

I hate tax prep and try not to think about it except the day or two in hell every year doing the tax. Have a general impression that the tax bill is "temperamental" and can vary widely on fairly small differences in input, at least for self employed taxes. Seemingly small differences of income and expenses making what seem to be big changes in the tax bill.

Probably when one's adjusted income happens to shoot below a certain bracket in one year then above a bracket the next. And the amount that one's income rises above the "nearly free" zone at the bottom carved out by the standard deductions.

Wife would claim zero deductions on her salary to increase withholding, and I'd be sending in the ballpark of $20,000 estimated payments for quite a few years, then in 2012 I got too fried to program much and my part of the income dropped to a third of its usual amount, and I expected my part of the tax bill to be about a third of the $20,000, but strangely wife's withholdings covered the entire tax bill, including my self employed SS tax tab. Not that I'm complaining, but that seemed kinda odd.

OTOH wife paid em what seems to me a purt big chunk of her pay. Just that the tax bill dropped more than expected.

But there were some years when turbo would tell me what I owed that were "oh crap!" moments. Edited January 13, 2014 by Lester Weevils

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Yeh, TurboTax gave me some of those moments, also. I still use them, though, until they go completely online. Then I will refuse.

Don't know if they're trying that anymore, but they once did a few years ago.