2024 Tax Season Thread

[Buehler445]

It's that time.

Let's talk taxes.

[HonestChieffan]

I gathered up all my receipts for the year. Was amess to do but found the ones in one truck, found thones in second truck.

Have all the 1099's and stock reports, have my side hustle income done.

Expenses this year were bottom line killer. Thankfully they should be "non-recurring". Transmission, do major work on 4 wheeler and a UTV, to many $ on finishing a storage building...

Accountant will have to decide what we claim and not claim. Plus I will get smashed with a CapGain that is nasty

I hate taxes.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by HonestChieffan

I gathered up all my receipts for the year. Was amess to do but found the ones in one truck, found thones in second truck.

Have all the 1099's and stock reports, have my side hustle income done.

Expenses this year were bottom line killer. Thankfully they should be "non-recurring". Transmission, do major work on 4 wheeler and a UTV, to many $ on finishing a storage building...

Accountant will have to decide what we claim and not claim. Plus I will get smashed with a CapGain that is nasty

I hate taxes.

Make sure you know what they deduct. Most accountants haven't a clue. I'd hate to see her take nothing then you pay more taxes. Typically the client tells the preparer what percentage is business use.

Fun fact cap gain is typically the cheapest tax rate unless you make not much money.

[HonestChieffan]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

Make sure you know what they deduct. Most accountants haven't a clue. I'd hate to see her take nothing then you pay more taxes. Typically the client tells the preparer what percentage is business use.

Fun fact cap gain is typically the cheapest tax rate unless you make not much money.

agree on both points but **** em. Maybe i get a drought and lose my ass to screw the .gov. There is no win

Hope you are doing well, hope you grab good rains this year, and commodity prices suck so bad we cant see a win more than a break even. Other than that be we well and do things that make you happy.

[Rain Man]

Okay. (Symbolically brushing hands off.). It's all in the accountants' hands now, aside from two K1s on investments who are illegally late every stinkin' year. So I have to file an extension again because these two companies can't get their act together.

One of the best things about living in the modern world is that it's convenient to figure out my spending and maximize my deductions and stuff. I also use tax season as a way to summarize and classify all of my spending for the year. I have three credit cards and a couple of bank accounts, so I can pull down every penny I spend over the course of the year and classify it.

- The credit cards are nice because I can download Excel files that have spending classifications already built in. I'll adjust the categories a bit each year, but they're a great place to start.
- I pay most of my regular bills via electronic checking, and I can download an activity report for the year. An annoyance is that my bank will only let me download a pdf that doesn't convert into usable Excel data, so I have to enter each record manually. But at least all of the data is there.
- We write a handful of manual checks over the course of the year, and my wife makes Venmo transactions, but those are generally easy to figure out and classify since they're in the bank activity records, and there aren't a lot of them. ATM withdrawals are also recorded, and are very infrequent.

The only things I can't classify are a few Venmo transactions (not a big deal), the cash ATM withdrawals (not a big deal), and a ton of 'Amazon shopping' charges on my credit cards. The Amazon stuff includes some normal subscriptions like coffee and toothpaste and toilet paper, and I suspect that my wife also uses it to launder money spent on clothing purchases since I gently nag her every year about how much money she spends on clothing. But I can't tell what each Amazon purchase is, so I just have to lump them under 'shopping'. I guess I could go back to the Amazon records and classify each purchase, but it's not worth the effort.

The spending summary is a lot of work, but it's really nice because I can ...

1. Be sure to get all of the maintenance write-offs for my apartment.
2. Get any other deductions. For example, we're spending a fortune on health care this year since we both have to buy insurance on the private market, and we also had some major expenses on other things this year like hearing aids, glasses, and medical tests. We're well over the point this year to be able to deduct some costs.
3. Track and monitor our spending to be sure we're in good shape on retirement funds.
4. Gently nag my wife about clothing expenditures.
5. Gently nag myself about travel expenditure.
6. Track spending on home projects for capital gains purchases if we ever move.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Okay. (Symbolically brushing hands off.). It's all in the accountants' hands now, aside from two K1s on investments who are illegally late every stinkin' year. So I have to file an extension again because these two companies can't get their act together.

One of the best things about living in the modern world is that it's convenient to figure out my spending and maximize my deductions and stuff. I also use tax season as a way to summarize and classify all of my spending for the year. I have three credit cards and a couple of bank accounts, so I can pull down every penny I spend over the course of the year and classify it.

- The credit cards are nice because I can download Excel files that have spending classifications already built in. I'll adjust the categories a bit each year, but they're a great place to start.
- I pay most of my regular bills via electronic checking, and I can download an activity report for the year. An annoyance is that my bank will only let me download a pdf that doesn't convert into usable Excel data, so I have to enter each record manually. But at least all of the data is there.
- We write a handful of manual checks over the course of the year, and my wife makes Venmo transactions, but those are generally easy to figure out and classify since they're in the bank activity records, and there aren't a lot of them. ATM withdrawals are also recorded, and are very infrequent.

The only things I can't classify are a few Venmo transactions (not a big deal), the cash ATM withdrawals (not a big deal), and a ton of 'Amazon shopping' charges on my credit cards. The Amazon stuff includes some normal subscriptions like coffee and toothpaste and toilet paper, and I suspect that my wife also uses it to launder money spent on clothing purchases since I gently nag her every year about how much money she spends on clothing. But I can't tell what each Amazon purchase is, so I just have to lump them under 'shopping'. I guess I could go back to the Amazon records and classify each purchase, but it's not worth the effort.

The spending summary is a lot of work, but it's really nice because I can ...

1. Be sure to get all of the maintenance write-offs for my apartment.
2. Get any other deductions. For example, we're spending a fortune on health care this year since we both have to buy insurance on the private market, and we also had some major expenses on other things this year like hearing aids, glasses, and medical tests. We're well over the point this year to be able to deduct some costs.
3. Track and monitor our spending to be sure we're in good shape on retirement funds.
4. Gently nag my wife about clothing expenditures.
5. Gently nag myself about travel expenditure.
6. Track spending on home projects for capital gains purchases if we ever move.

So I live in Backwoods Hillbilly Nowhereville and my 1 location shitheel bank can get me a CSV output. WTF?

Also, you can look at your Amazon Order history and the Printable order summary (almost always) ties to the CC charges.

Also, PSA: I didn't put my Itemized expenses on for a few years because I had no chance of getting over the Standard Deduction. That was a mistake. I could have taken them on my Kansas return.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

So I live in Backwoods Hillbilly Nowhereville and my 1 location shitheel bank can get me a CSV output. WTF?

Also, you can look at your Amazon Order history and the Printable order summary (almost always) ties to the CC charges.

Also, PSA: I didn't put my Itemized expenses on for a few years because I had no chance of getting over the Standard Deduction. That was a mistake. I could have taken them on my Kansas return.

My bank is locally owned, but it's pretty big. I have no idea why they don't have a way to download an XLS or CSV version. It seems like it's probably five minutes of programming. I probably should call them and ask them to do it.

Maybe next year I'll decide to look into the Amazon charges. It's not something I need to do for taxes, though, and I don't know that it'll help me nag my wife about spending.

With the relatively recent rules changes about deductions, and after paying my house off, I didn't really see a need to do it for a while. But the medical costs this year have been insane. Health insurance runs me over $2,000 a month, and then I had something like $8,000 in direct expenses atop that. I might have to look into getting a medical degree and doing it all myself.

[2bikemike]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Okay. (Symbolically brushing hands off.). It's all in the accountants' hands now, aside from two K1s on investments who are illegally late every stinkin' year. So I have to file an extension again because these two companies can't get their act together.

One of the best things about living in the modern world is that it's convenient to figure out my spending and maximize my deductions and stuff. I also use tax season as a way to summarize and classify all of my spending for the year. I have three credit cards and a couple of bank accounts, so I can pull down every penny I spend over the course of the year and classify it.

- The credit cards are nice because I can download Excel files that have spending classifications already built in. I'll adjust the categories a bit each year, but they're a great place to start.
- I pay most of my regular bills via electronic checking, and I can download an activity report for the year. An annoyance is that my bank will only let me download a pdf that doesn't convert into usable Excel data, so I have to enter each record manually. But at least all of the data is there.
- We write a handful of manual checks over the course of the year, and my wife makes Venmo transactions, but those are generally easy to figure out and classify since they're in the bank activity records, and there aren't a lot of them. ATM withdrawals are also recorded, and are very infrequent.

The only things I can't classify are a few Venmo transactions (not a big deal), the cash ATM withdrawals (not a big deal), and a ton of 'Amazon shopping' charges on my credit cards. The Amazon stuff includes some normal subscriptions like coffee and toothpaste and toilet paper, and I suspect that my wife also uses it to launder money spent on clothing purchases since I gently nag her every year about how much money she spends on clothing. But I can't tell what each Amazon purchase is, so I just have to lump them under 'shopping'. I guess I could go back to the Amazon records and classify each purchase, but it's not worth the effort.

The spending summary is a lot of work, but it's really nice because I can ...

1. Be sure to get all of the maintenance write-offs for my apartment.
2. Get any other deductions. For example, we're spending a fortune on health care this year since we both have to buy insurance on the private market, and we also had some major expenses on other things this year like hearing aids, glasses, and medical tests. We're well over the point this year to be able to deduct some costs.
3. Track and monitor our spending to be sure we're in good shape on retirement funds.
4. Gently nag my wife about clothing expenditures.
5. Gently nag myself about travel expenditure.
6. Track spending on home projects for capital gains purchases if we ever move.

We pretty much put everything on a rewards credit card. Which makes it rather easy to track spending. I used to feel guilty about putting a $1.50 on the credit card but have gotten over it.

We have some things that come out of the Electronic pay from our Checking account. But my OCD of budgeting, I track all spending on a spreadsheet that I created. All line items have a running total. I download the .CSV file from the credit card company every month, modify and re-sort that data and plug that info into my spread sheet. I log into the bank about once a week and anything in or out of the account goes into the spread sheet.

If someone asked what I spent on groceries 5 years ago I can tell you!

And when I read how much you spent on medical insurance I about fell over. We are about 1/2 of what you pay! Even with our LTC coverage we are less than $2k. I guess I am very fortunate that I was able to continue with my employers plan after retirement!

[displacedinMN]

15k in checks.....mostly because of capital gains

[notorious]

Bueh fighting his way to April 15:

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by notorious

Bueh fighting his way to April 15:

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by 2bikemike

...

And when I read how much you spent on medical insurance I about fell over. We are about 1/2 of what you pay! Even with our LTC coverage we are less than $2k. I guess I am very fortunate that I was able to continue with my employers plan after retirement!

We lost our company insurance over the past couple of years as we retired, and that's the pricing we got on the health exchange. It's a pretty good plan, but yeah, it's expensive. And we still spent $8K out of pocket, though about 3/4 of that was hearing aids and glasses that aren't covered.

It'll go down a bit this year since my wife is going on Medicare. She's still working through the application, but I think it'll drop from $2,000 a month to about $1,300 a month. That'll be a big difference. I won't get Medicare for another few years.

[2bikemike]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

We lost our company insurance over the past couple of years as we retired, and that's the pricing we got on the health exchange. It's a pretty good plan, but yeah, it's expensive. And we still spent $8K out of pocket, though about 3/4 of that was hearing aids and glasses that aren't covered.

It'll go down a bit this year since my wife is going on Medicare. She's still working through the application, but I think it'll drop from $2,000 a month to about $1,300 a month. That'll be a big difference. I won't get Medicare for another few years.

My wife has medicare now and I will go on it next year. Her part B premium skyrocketed this year to just over $400 because we sold an apartment bldg in 2023. The capital gains triggered it so it will drop back next year.

To add insult to that injury the capital gains triggered the 3.8% surtax on rental income, capital gains, dividends and interest income. All for the affordable care act.

[Stewie]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

We lost our company insurance over the past couple of years as we retired, and that's the pricing we got on the health exchange. It's a pretty good plan, but yeah, it's expensive. And we still spent $8K out of pocket, though about 3/4 of that was hearing aids and glasses that aren't covered.

It'll go down a bit this year since my wife is going on Medicare. She's still working through the application, but I think it'll drop from $2,000 a month to about $1,300 a month. That'll be a big difference. I won't get Medicare for another few years.

I start Medicare this year. Have you looked at Advantage plans? Way better than doing individual Medicare plans. My brother is much older than me and has been on United Healthcare Advantage plan for years. He pays far less in premiums and has been happy with it. I'm pretty sure I'm going that route.

[George Liquor]

Originally Posted by displacedinMN

15k in checks.....mostly because of capital gains

I feel ya there. All my tax return went to my wife's (unrealized) credit card debt. I just bit my tongue and paid it but good god, what we could have done with that money.

[tmax63]

2024 was my 1st year on social security and I just discovered that the amount of money you can make without affecting your ss is completely different from the amount that affects how much federal tax you pay on your social security. About a $2k lesson learned. And I thought I had researched it and had a pretty good understanding of it all.