Current Events > Day 2 of the Tax Return Saga

(+) Yeah! (+)

Spent almost 3 hours yesterday putting our Federal return together. Reporting on stocks is a pain in the behind and I almost overlooked that portion of my tax report from Robinhood entirely the first few times I looked at it >_>.

Now to put together the state returns. Yippee -_-

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Generally if you have all covered transactions (information reported to the IRS) and no wash sales or other adjustment, you can just report the totals. Even if this doesn't apply, you can still usually report the totals and break out the wash sales, and attach a copy of the brokerage statement to your return

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use a software or accountant. its worth the cost of not stressing.
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E32005 posted...

use a software or accountant. its worth the cost of not stressing.

Yeah I just use turbo tax now. I tried the free stuff the first few years, but it becomes a giant headache when you have multiple sources of income

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EndOfDiscOne posted...

Generally if you have all covered transactions (information reported to the IRS) and no wash sales or other adjustment, you can just report the totals. Even if this doesn't apply, you can still usually report the totals and break out the wash sales, and attach a copy of the brokerage statement to your return

It's just a pain because one of the Trusts I invested in pays out Royalties, which I guess requires a 1040, and it's asking for information I don't have (like a Business Code, even though I don't have a Business Code because it wasn't money made or distributed through a business, just from owning some shares of a Trust).

E32005 posted...

use a software or accountant. its worth the cost of not stressing.

I've always used Turbotax, but it's become more complicated in the last few years with the wife working and we have to file separate state returns and it's a pain in the ass.

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Apparently I can't just report the Royalties from the 1099-MISC form, I had to go to the Trust's website and pull up its tax letter and they have nifty charts and now I get to do math instead of just relying on what Robinhood gave me fml. The sad part is that it's not even that much money, like 4 bucks so I don't even know why I'm bothering. ALSO the other Trust I have ownership of just pays out Dividends why can't this other shitty one do the same.

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Should a used turbotax

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KillerSlaw posted...

Should a used turbotax

that's the easy route if it's just a simple return he has all these complicated shit he has to go through hoops for so uncle sam can either refund him money/break even or owe the right amount.
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KillerSlaw posted...

Should a used turbotax

I am lol, but when you're filing on investments it's a pain regardless apparently (actually just stay away from any sort of natural resource trusts and you're probably good. I'm a basic B when it comes to investing tho)

And then here's the page on how I have to put my returns together: https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/using-turbotax/help/how-do-i-prepare-a-joint-federal-return-and-separate-state-returns/01/25564/highlight/true

edit: And the second Trust doesn't pay dividends. Apparently the forms you get from Robinhood are just all wrong here.

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So I think I figured it all out. That's a lot of work for $37... And for some reason TurboTax is saying I'm eligible for a $2 credit for some business-related reason but I don't know how or why or where that's coming from and it's making me nervous.

Time to shell out $40 to get the second state forms installed -_-

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Hexenherz posted...

So I think I figured it all out. That's a lot of work for $37... And for some reason TurboTax is saying I'm eligible for a $2 credit for some business-related reason but I don't know how or why or where that's coming from and it's making me nervous.

Time to shell out $40 to get the second state forms installed -_-

*sniffs the sweet smell of gov't bureaucracy*
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How do you tell if your Capital Gains/Losses and Royalty payments are taxable by the state you live in if you're not a resident of the state?

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Oh shit they amended the tax law for servicemembers. It used to be that your spouse could only keep their state of domicile if they were from the same state as you and then you moved for PCS reasons (for instance, two people from Arizona get married, one is in the military and gets orders to California, they both move to California but they file taxes to Arizona specifically. But if the Arizona person gets stationed in Cali, marries a Californian, then they both move to Virginia, the Californian would have to take Virginian residence and pay VA taxes while the Arizona service member would still pay Arizona).

BUT under a new law, that doesn't matter and the non-military spouse can arbitrarily take residence in the state of the military spouse regardless of the circumstances.

I need to figure out how to do that shit.

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Shit, apparently that law went into effect for tax year 2018, which means it will probably be hard to justify changing my wife's status to non-resident for this state when she already filed as a resident last year.

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Well w/e I'm done, just went ahead and filed married jointly as nonresidents of MD so my wife gets her money back.

Total refund between states and federal = $7500 lawl

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congrats at least you'll be getting something back.
some on CE aren't as lucky :(.
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kingdrake2 posted...

congrats at least you'll be getting something back.
some on CE aren't as lucky :(.

I mean it's not bad to get 0 refund. It sucks to have to pay though imo.

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Hexenherz posted...

Total refund between states and federal = $7500 lawl

Waaaay too much. Be sure to adjust your withholding down using the IRS' calculator so you can get more per paycheck.

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/tax-withholding-estimator


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wmac152 posted...

Waaaay too much. Be sure to adjust your withholding down using the IRS' calculator so you can get more per paycheck.

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/tax-withholding-estimator

Well, I never set up the withholding exemption for Oregon, and being able to stop withholdings on my wife's income is a very new (for us) thing this year.

Federal the return is closer to $1500 ($1200, but we got some education expenses reimbursed).

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