Taxes (USA) thread. What is your refund/pay status?

[Joanne]

In the past, we've had tax update threads. I just finished my taxes and thought I'd start one.

 

I am getting a refund. Between a slightly reduced income (I was out of work due to the accident), a kid I can claim, EIC and the start of a private practice, I get a decent amount back (maybe ;)).

 

I filed tonight. I used Turbo Tax, and elected to use part for an Amazon gc. I will get a direct deposit. It was transmitted.

I found this for direct deposit estimates:

 

http://igotmyrefund.com/2014-irs-e-file-refund-cycle-chart/

 

So, if it's accepted possibly Feb. 21. It would be nice to have some rent offset for March!

 

How about you?

 

 

[Moxie]

We haven't done them yet but we're self-employed so we will be paying.

[Tap]

Ours haven't even hit the accountant's desk yet.  LOL

[zoobie]

We pay oodles, so we will file at the last possible minute.

[Happy]

We are both self employed so we always get to write a check. DH just got his 1099, so we can begin the process. We learned several years ago -- the hard way -- to be sure we were putting aside enough $$$ to pay for taxes. Ugh.

 

When people ask how much a real estate agent makes, I say a third. :)  1/3 to taxes, 1/3 to dues/fees/expenses, and 1/3 for me. Trying to build a deeper medical fund for the future.

[aggie96]

We are self employed and pay oodles, also.  It's painful...very painful.  We will file and pay at the last possible minute as well.  I loathe handing over our money.  :(

[LMV]

I trust my husband more than most accountants so he does our taxes. He hopes he is almost done with our taxes.  He started and then had to step back because one of the new forms we need (maybe Form 8960) to file hadn't actually been released yet. I guess it is now out but he's busy with some work commitments and probably won't get back to it for another week. 

[Freckles]

My dh does our taxes. Sent off today. Refund

[Annie G]

I do our taxes every year and last year's return should have netted us a $600 refund. Instead I got a letter from the IRS saying that I had miscalculated the education credit for our two college students and to please send a check for $650 to cover my error. Um, no. I argued our point, resent documentation, and waited. And every 60 days I got a letter that they needed more time to research our case. Today's mail brought a letter from the IRS that I was right, they have reversed their decision, and we also got a check for our refund plus interest due since they held this for the past 11 months. Yippee!!!!   So now I can start my tax return- I was waiting because if I made a mistake last year I sure didn't want to do the same thing this year! 

 

I've already done preliminary calculations and we'll probably be about the same place this year as last year. Paying a ton of taxes but having enough education credits to get a small refund. 

 

 

[LucyStoner]

I did efile at home on 1/19. It was accepted early by the IRS on 1/26 (they had planned to not start accepting returns until 1/31) with a note that refunds would start processing on 1/31. On 2/2 the app said "refund approved" and a deposit date is listed as "sent to bank by" 2/6.

 

With my husband in school, between the reduced income and the education tax benefits, we are getting a tidy refund.

 

Most refunds were issued within 21 days of the return being received last year.

 

I volunteer to do tax returns and the IRS accepted those earlier than announced too but no action on refunds until 2/1.

[MomtoCandJ]

Did ours, refund due Feb. 13th :)

[Susan C.]

Waiting for 1099s. They are always late. Very late. And I can't use turbo tax without them.

[SunnyDays]

We have done a preliminary calculation, need to go back through and check the details.  We'll get a small refund. 

 

[twoxcell]

I filed mine the week before last and it was accepted early before the 31st. So far I have no estimate on my refund yet. :/ My sister filed hers the week after me and is supposed to be getting her refund this week. She always seems to get her refund before me no matter if I file before. It must have something to do with last names.

[mytwomonkeys]

I finished ours in January. It was accepted and processed. Check is due to be in our account on Feb 6th!!!!!! :)

 

ETA I also used turbo tax. I found my refund status at IRS where's my refund website

[twoxcell]

I used Turbo Tax as well and the where's My Refund says accepted but no date is given yet for my refund. I'm hoping it will be updated tomorrow.

[Amy in NH]

I filed ours in the middle of January.  It has been received by the IRS, but not approved, so no direct deposit date yet.  Ugh.

[mytwomonkeys]

I used Turbo Tax as well and the where's My Refund says accepted but no date is given yet for my refund. I'm hoping it will be updated tomorrow.

Mine was like that Saturday. It changed Sunday to the second phase with a date for the deposit. It said if it wasn't there by the 11th to contact them, but is expected on the 6th!!

 

Keep checking!! :)

[elegantlion]

This will be my first year filing alone and as a student. I ran through it quickly a few weeks ago and got a broad estimate, now to do the real thing. 

[danybug]

We filed. I used Taxact, which I absolutely love. In the past I always used turbotax. Last year someone suggested Taxact and I switched and was so grateful. I love how much more help it offered me for capital gains/losses.

 

Our return was accepted early and our refund is due to be deposited this Friday. I was super ecstatic, even though the big sum was basically a free loan to the government all this time.

[Tree Frog]

We filed. I used Taxact, which I absolutely love. In the past I always used turbotax. Last year someone suggested Taxact and I switched and was so grateful. I love how much more help it offered me for capital gains/losses.

 

Our return was accepted early and our refund is due to be deposited this Friday. I was super ecstatic, even though the big sum was basically a free loan to the government all this time.

We used TaxAct as well and like it. Each year when we've filed, we've received a couple of e-mails fairly quickly after we've submitted our return, "Federal Return Accepted" and "Returns Received." This year, though, we haven't received any e-mails confirming the tax return was received. We checked on the .gov site (or TaxAct, I don't rememner) and it's been received and accepted. It's possible they were sent to our spam folder; dh emptied it before checking to see if there were any e-mails that weren't spam, but in previous years, the TaxAct and .gov e-mails did not go to spam.

 

Did you receive any e-mails like I described when you submitted your return?  I'm asking because I'm concerned about possible identity theft.

 

ETA: spelling correction and clarification

[danybug]

We used TaxAct as well and like it. Each year when we've filed, we've received a couple of e-mails fairly quickly after we've submitted our return, "Federal Return Accepted" and "Returns Received." This year, though, we haven't received any e-mails confirming the tax return was received. We checked on the .gov site (or TaxAct, I don't rememner) and it's been received and accepted. It's possible they were sent to our spam folder; dh emptied it before checking to see if there were any e-mails that weren't spam, but in previous years, the TaxAct and .gov e-mails did not go to spam.

 

Did you receive any e-mails like I described when you submitted your return? I'm asking because I'm concerned about possible identity theft.

 

ETA: spelling correction and clarification

I received text messages first. At the end it asked for choices for notification and I had selected my mobile phone as one. I did also receive emails from Taxact after as well. My emails did not end up in spam, but hopefully yours did. I would not worry.

[SKL]

I just paid a hefty estimate, but chances are that I'll have to pay some more.  Depends on some flow-throughs that I don't have access to.

 

I just hold my nose and deal.  It is never pleasant.

[Mom in High Heels]

We used TaxAct as well and like it. Each year when we've filed, we've received a couple of e-mails fairly quickly after we've submitted our return, "Federal Return Accepted" and "Returns Received." This year, though, we haven't received any e-mails confirming the tax return was received. We checked on the .gov site (or TaxAct, I don't rememner) and it's been received and accepted. It's possible they were sent to our spam folder; dh emptied it before checking to see if there were any e-mails that weren't spam, but in previous years, the TaxAct and .gov e-mails did not go to spam.

 

Did you receive any e-mails like I described when you submitted your return?  I'm asking because I'm concerned about possible identity theft.

 

ETA: spelling correction and clarification

 

We use taxact as well, and have for about 5 or 6 years (maybe more).  This year, I got an email that our state taxes have been accepted, but nothing yet on federal.  Because a huge chunk of James Bond's pay from last year was non-taxable (he was in a combat zone), we qualified for the EIC, so we're getting a nice refund.  Yay.

 

ETA:  I just checked and our federal has been received and is being processed.  Of course I just filed Sat, so I'm not expecting it to  be processed for another day or so.

[Laura Corin]

Husband (American) has to declare each year, but as his UK taxes are offset against his US ones, and he doesn't reach the minimum for overseas Americans paying tax in the US anyway, he never has to pay and doesn't get a refund either.  It seems like a lot of work for nothing.  The UK and the US have different tax years and different deductions, so it's complicated to convert his declarations.  The US is one of only a handful of countries that require declarations (and potentially tax payments) based on overseas earnings of expatriate citizens.

 

L

[Pawz4me]

We normally work hard to make sure things come out about even at filing time.  We prefer not to owe a huge chunk or to pay in too much throughout the year so that Uncle Sam has interest free use of our money for months. ;)

 

However, due to an inheritance, this year our AGI was higher than we could have anticipated.  So we owed Uncle (and the state) a good chunk of change.

 

We've already received notification that our federal return has been processed.  Typically we wouldn't file so early when having to pay, but this is this first year we've had a kid heading into college and had all that financial stuff to deal with, so we needed to get things done as early as possible.

[LisaKinVA]

No idea how ours will turn out:

 

I owe $500 from the 4th quarter (self-employment, there will be a penalty)

DH's income was cut (sequester, and then moving to Italy, so our income for the 4th quarter is about 20-25% lower...)

Took an emergency pay out from retirement account due to sequester (so, tax hit there)

Deductions for preparing house for rental, and taking a loss on the rental (may offset something...not sure how much)

 

I'm hoping, but dh said not to count on anything :(

[MyThreeSons]

 

How about you?

 

I did mine last weekend with TurboTax online, and received a notice on Tuesday (the 28th) that it was accepted early by the IRS. According to the table in your link, I may have my refund (direct deposited, of course) this week.

 

Which would be really good, so that I can turn around and pay our annual property taxes without incurring a bigger late penalty. (I always miss the January 15th due date, because I need the refund to pay.)

 

Still need to help the guys get their taxes done so that we can do FAFSA.

[MyThreeSons]

I do our taxes every year and last year's return should have netted us a $600 refund. Instead I got a letter from the IRS saying that I had miscalculated the education credit for our two college students and to please send a check for $650 to cover my error. Um, no. I argued our point, resent documentation, and waited. And every 60 days I got a letter that they needed more time to research our case. Today's mail brought a letter from the IRS that I was right, they have reversed their decision, and we also got a check for our refund plus interest due since they held this for the past 11 months. Yippee!!!!   So now I can start my tax return- I was waiting because if I made a mistake last year I sure didn't want to do the same thing this year! 

 

 

Very cool that you were able to stand your ground. Uncool that it took so long for them to agree. Cool that they had to pay with interest.

 

A question, though: Why are you doing any calculations at all? If you use something like TurboTax, it asks you questions, you fill in the amounts, and it does all of the calculating. And many of these programs guarantee that their calculations are correct. 

[Lanny]

No idea how ours will turn out:

 

I owe $500 from the 4th quarter (self-employment, there will be a penalty)

DH's income was cut (sequester, and then moving to Italy, so our income for the 4th quarter is about 20-25% lower...)

Took an emergency pay out from retirement account due to sequester (so, tax hit there)

Deductions for preparing house for rental, and taking a loss on the rental (may offset something...not sure how much)

 

I'm hoping, but dh said not to count on anything :(

 

I use the TaxAct software. The first year or two, I used the Free Federal edition, but for my 2012 taxes, I paid for the Deluxe Federal edition and this year I will get a little discount, when I pay TaxAct for using their program for my 2013 taxes.

 

I suggest that you DO NOT use a U.S. Mailing Address for your taxes when you are living overseas. That could lead to grief with the I.R.S.

 

If you use an APO/FPO Mailing Address, I believe that is considered to be within the USA and you will not qualify for the Automatic Extension, etc.

 

If your DH is working for the U.S. Government, or, a Contractor, I do not believe you will qualify for the Income Exclusion normally available to qualified overseas Americans. Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, which is Section 911 of the I.R.S. code. 

 

I have some  Self Employment income, so I need to file, because I need to pay Self Employment Tax. I will probably file in April or June...

 

BTW: Overseas Americans who are Section 911 qualified are excluded from ObamaCare, because they qualified for Section 911.

[Butter]

I did our taxes about a week and a half ago.  The federal one was picked as one of the "test" ones and was accepted last week (before the 31st).  We still don't get our refund until the first deposit cycle though.  Our Maryland return (last one ever! and next year we don't have to file state taxes since TX doesn't have a state income tax!) was accepted Sunday night.  We're getting a lot back.  Usually we try to break even and get no more than $50 back (not into the interest-free loan thing), but we bought a house this year so that mortgage interest deduction made a HUGE difference.

 

ETA: I just checked the Where's My Refund thingy and it says our refund is due to be sent to our bank on Thursday :)  Yay!

 

Maryland, however, has not decided if they will refund our money.  We were part year residents and I am sure they are taking every opportunity to make sure we pay them every single penny we might owe before they let us go completely.

[HelenNotOfTroy]

I do our taxes and started using Turbo Tax to e-file last year. We will be getting a refund due to having low income and getting EIC, but we owe the IRS from a prior tax year so it may take longer than it should to get our refund. They have received but not processed our return.

[PuddleJumper1]

We filed on Jan 17 so it had to sit in queue for a bit. I guess our chosen preparer didn't have early acceptance. Ours was accepted on the 1st. Still in the first stage. No doubt will see our refund some time this month. Every penny has a home already so no fun stuff this year but I will be glad to clear a few notches on the budget.

[Carrie12345]

We have to direct pay our local income tax every year b/c there's no paycheck system for that.

 

This is going to be the first year we owe. I thought we had adjusted withholdings enough, but I was wrong. And it is going to sting.

[Chris in VA]

Self employed here--both of us. We have to send in estimates each quarter.

This year I did not save enough out of my paycheck, so I'm going to have to come up with about 2K in the next two months. Yuck.

[Joyofsixreboot]

I do the taxes.  I use turbotax.  We'll get a refund mostly due to the kids and college expenses.  Yesterday my car quit and a basement window broke.  It's spent already  :huh:

[Ripley]

I don't typically get refunds. I'm in the "no interest-free loans to Uncle Sam" camp.

 

My ex-husband files my taxes for me. I retired last year, and my company just released the tax information on the 1st. I imagine this week he'll let me know how much I need to write a check for. :)

[AlmiraGulch]

I did efile at home on 1/19. It was accepted early by the IRS on 1/26 (they had planned to not start accepting returns until 1/31) with a note that refunds would start processing on 1/31. On 2/2 the app said "refund approved" and a deposit date is listed as "sent to bank by" 2/6.

 

 

 

This.  Even the dates.

 

I was sweating it this year, honestly.   If it weren't for my husband's "professional musician" status, we would be writing a hefty check.  Fortunately for us, he has a hefty number of write-offs when you add up all the mileage, equipment, supplies, etc., so that saved us. Thankfully.  

[AlmiraGulch]

We filed. I used Taxact, which I absolutely love. In the past I always used turbotax. Last year someone suggested Taxact and I switched and was so grateful. I love how much more help it offered me for capital gains/losses.

 

 

 

Care to share any more about TaxAct?  I have used TurboTax for years with no issue, but this year the redesign of the UI was just terrible, and the "help" they offer is useless.  When I was doing the final check I accidentally checked no to a question where I should have checked yes, and it totally reversed my refund and actually had us paying.  The problem was that I didn't know where on the actual form I'd checked that box, and it didn't show up in any of the questions.  It was just on the final check.  I called in and they tried to help, but I eventually figured it out on my own before they came back to the phone, and when they did come back they gave me the wrong answer.  It's frustrating.  

 

I'd like to switch but I like that TT transfers the information from prior years, and I have no confidence that others will be any better.  I like knowing there's hope! 

[trudence1]

We get a very large return (I don't say refund because we really don't pay in).  Our $ comes from EIC and the three kiddos. We used TurboTax again this year, and it has been accepted.

[ssavings]

I inadvertently upgraded to a more expensive version of TurboTax (which I have no need for). 

I'm on hold to get a service code so I don't pay twice as much as I need to file my taxes. :-/

We'll get a little back, and I hope to file today. 

 

[cjzimmer1]

I filed last night using Turbo Tax.  We will get a refund but since we wait for a paper check (not my choice but DH has asked me to do this for a very specific reason) it will probably be 3-4 weeks for a it to arrive (based on past years).  Typically our state refund (also a paper check) will be here 3-4 days after we file so I expect that one in the mail by Friday or Saturday.

[Wabi Sabi]

We just did ours. We will get a small (less than $1k) refund.

[Annie G]

Very cool that you were able to stand your ground. Uncool that it took so long for them to agree. Cool that they had to pay with interest.

 

A question, though: Why are you doing any calculations at all? If you use something like TurboTax, it asks you questions, you fill in the amounts, and it does all of the calculating. And many of these programs guarantee that their calculations are correct. 

 

 

I don't use a tax prep program. I took a tax prep class about 20 years ago (before TurboTax and such programs were widely used) and have just always done it myself.  It only takes me about an hour to do the preliminary estimations so it's not a big time sucker. You know how some people love to garden or do yard work or clean their house? Not me. But I LOVE doing our taxes.  Sick, I know.

[edelweiss]

We are self employed and pay oodles, also.  It's painful...very painful.  We will file and pay at the last possible minute as well.  I loathe handing over our money.   :(

 

 

Same here.  We are also self-employed and pay an absolutely obscene amount in taxes.  We will wait to file and pay at the absolute last minute as well.  

[FaithManor]

Refund for us. The quilt store that I worked at still doesn't have my W-2 to me - I think that they are going to be in big trouble for this because my understanding is that as of today, they still didn't have them ready! I didn't make much and we kept track of the deposits so dh was able to estimate. But, we can't file until we get the blasted thing. I'm trying very hard not to get them in trouble. There are some MEGA health issues that have hit both owners in the last 30 days, however, at some point there is probably going to be some trouble because when they realized they would not be able to get them out on time due to being hospitalized early in January, and then not being well since, they waited until Jan. 30th to hire an accountant!!! Uhm....that should have been the first week of Jan. when they were both so ill.

 

The funny thing is that while the federal refund is good sized, we'll owe about $150.00 to the state. Don't ask me why! Dh's employer has NEVER been able to get the withholding right for the state. We've had this problem every year for the last decade.

[Miss Peregrine]

Taxes done but not filed, I hope to do that tonight. Nice big refund from the adoption tax credit. It was spread out over 2 years and this is the 2nd year.

[TraciWA]

Filed and waiting for them to process it. Our refund is taking us to Disneyland!

[Desert Strawberry]

We use Jackson Hewitt. We filed this past weekend. We are getting more than twice what we expected. Our check will be ready on Friday :) Because we came in so early, they gave us a$50 Visa gift card. :D

Such a relief. We have a bunch of medical bills coming in, our refrigerator died, and we have a million house repairs to make. This will help us catch up.

[AmandaVT]

We usually get a refund, but this year DH's income is a mix of his full time job and self employment, so we'll have to pay. Not sure how much yet - hoping we saved enough throughout the year.