Taxes

I've been working on my taxes this week -- they've gotten considerably more complicated lately -- and opaque --

I paid a CPA to do the estate taxes for my dad's estate, because of the house sale and closing out his trust and all sorts of other weirdness -- she said it really wasn't a process I wanted to learn on --

But I figured our personal taxes were going to be easier and I had a history of doing them with TurboTax.  I think I'm done now.  Still have some questions.

Maybe President Trump will eliminate personal income taxes.

If you have much of anything more than common wages, taxes can be a bitch.

Got a call from our tax guy yesterday. We owe right at two grand to the feds, but are getting a refund of about fourteen hundred from the state. That's typical for the past few years.

We've been using a local firm to do our taxes for about twenty years. It really is worth the cost if you have anything hinky on the form. One year, I did a quick calculation and thought I would owe an additional 80K at the end of the year. But because of an alternative minimum tax calculation on the previous year's return, I didn't owe that amount and wound up getting a refund of a couple thousand. I never did completely understand how that worked (something about changing the basis of some stock cost) , but I never again complained about having to pay to get the taxes done.

Glad WA doesn't have a state income tax.

Of course we do pay 9.5% sales tax. That only comes to $1609 deductable on my taxes.

Yeah. Because we pay state income tax, we cannot deduct the sales tax (eight percent).
Actually, I have the choice of deducting either state income tax or sales tax, but not both. What sense does that make?

Deductible? Or deductable? That's another word that always trips me up.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Glad WA doesn't have a state income tax.

Of course we do pay 9.5% sales tax.  That only comes to $1609 deductable on my taxes.

_Howard wrote:

I have the choice of deducting either state income tax or sales tax, but not both.

Just got the docs back from the tax guy. The lunacy of the sales tax/state income tax choice was really made clear. I could have deducted about $2,000 for sale tax. My state income tax deduction was $18,000. Who would elect to deduct sales tax?

Glad the taxes are done for another year. I really hate the process; it takes me hours to fill out the forms for the accountants. Digging around looking for misplaced forms, etc.,; fucking hate it.

We are nearing the end of my wife's career. She has finally started talking about retirement. I will hate losing the income, but I won't miss paying taxes. The fucking withholding this year was a bit over $75,000. I didn't mind paying large amounts for taxes when I was making shit loads of money, but as we near the time of small incomes, I have started resenting the amount of tax we pay. Especially when I know that multi-billion corporate profits go untaxed.

Vote Republican.

Never!

"If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain." – attributed, erroneously, to Winston Churchill

Whoever came up with it is an asshole.

Filling out the forms for my tax guy today.

Now the waiting begins.