<p>Anyone else think that they couldn’t POSSIBLY make it any more confusing??</p>
<p>It was a wonderful snowy day here is NJ…couldn’t go anywhere.
What a great day to attempt my federal return online for the first time.
You can link from the <a href=“http://www.irs.gov%5B/url%5D”>www.irs.gov</a> site to many commercial sites, including turbotax, to file FREE online.</p>
<p>I scooted through my (freshman college) son’s pretty easily so thought I’d give ours a try.</p>
<p>Whooooa…
I want to think we might qualify for SOME break here…maybe the Hope credit, the Lifetime Learning credit or at least a tax free withdrawal from our son’s (way too small) 529 account.
But it may take me a few more sessions to figure out what!
Some allow tuition only, some allow some fees, 529 allows room and board as of this year (yeah!).</p>
<p>That’s funny. I just went to the IRS site to check it out a few minutes ago. I could pay $14.95 to do it online through my credit union, but it’s free through IRs. (I wonder how long turbotax will stay in existence if people can use their service for free!). Does the program still guide you through questions and steer you to the best options??? Musicmom, does the turbotax through IRS automatically determine which of those (the hope credit, or the lifetime learning) is best for you? I don’t have W-2’s yet, so haven’t started the process. I’m wondering if DD’s college will send some form that tells the aid awarded for tax purposes.</p>
<p>Anxiousmom-
Up till this year, we’ve always done the old fashioned paper and accountant method. So I can’t say if the IRS/Turbotax version offered is any different from the ‘regular’ version.</p>
<p>I pretty much gave up and saved my stuff to go back to…I hope the program DOES help with deciding which credit works best for us.
Also, the IRS site claims that the colleges send a statement by 1/31 to all enrolled students (1098T?) that helps with this.
We haven’t seen it yet so I just emailed the finaid dept to ask about it.</p>
<p>Best luck to you and please share anything you can!</p>
<p>To add to the confusion, if your income doesn’t let you qualify for the Hope Credit or Lifetime Learning credit, you can also take a tuition deduction. You need a computer program or a lot of patience to figure out which is best. College do send out a 1098T, but very few of them are accurate. Hopefully, now that they’ve been doing it longer, they will get better at it.</p>
<p>We are in the middle of the college confusion as well. I thought it would be a great help if I used the online free methods pointed out at irs.gov. Before this year, we too did the paper /by hand method.</p>
<p>I selected esmarttax from the group and entered my infor. Sadly, it didn’t help me at all with some things, but I did figure it out on my own…hit “submit” and it erased my return! This is after an hour of entering.</p>
<p>So I am back to the old-fashioned way, reading about the 529/hope credits and filling in the paper work. <em>sigh</em></p>
<p>I have to celebrate a bit this lovely Sunday morning.
FINALLY put the finishing touches on our and son’s federal and state tax returns and will mail tomorrown. Did end up using the free irs.gov website.<br>
It was time consuming but I also learned alot and am gratified to have it done.</p>
<p>Then, I corrected our estimated FAFSA submitted a month ago.<br>
Yep, we made a whopping $6T more last year and our EFC went up by $4T.
Oh well.</p>
<p>Much more fun this weekend was meeting our freshman college son’s new girlfriend.
It is pretty much the first announced ‘girlfriend’ vs all the ‘friends who are girls’ that we’ve met the last few years.
She’s lovely and smart and pretty. He’s happy. Life is good.</p>
<p>Hope you all figured out this tax/FAFSA stuff also.</p>
<p>Musicmom: what a coincidence (though off the main topic): we’re off to the city tonight to meet new college girlfriend —and parents! (also first gf as opposed to friend who is a girl.) eek. I am a little nervous…</p>
<p>You’re meeting both the girl AND parents! Have a lovely nite in the city.
I bet you’ll all enjoy each other… </p>
<p>I was nervous meeting just the girlfriend (silly, huh?) but that lasted just until she hugged me hello. I should have trusted that our mostly wonderful son would find a good match out there!</p>
<p>I just checked my bank acct online, and my tax refund is already deposited. Whohoo! I used the Turbotax through the Irs.gov website a few weeks ago, and it asked questions, then it figured out which college credit was most advantageous, also figured out our (NEW) sales tax deduction. It was lovely and easy and so much faster than the pen and paper way I did our taxes last year - and I didn’t have to wonder about the sadists who thought up “take 3% of line 47, then deduct 6% of line 32 and compare this figure with line 29, unless your percentage of line 45 is greater than 20 % of line 27…” The only problem I had with the program was printing out my completed form (I have a Macintosh computer, and maybe it didn’t like Macs?), but eventually I was able to print it out sucessfully, and today, voila, tax refund in the bank! I did receive form from DD’s financial aid office with information. I called them with questions because it only listed what was billed -not paid. They said that schools can choose to report the information several different ways. As listed on the 1098, the Fall and Spring tuition shows up in this calendar year bill, but only the Fall financial aid is credited yet - so we end up with lots of tution charges to deduct. Hope you all have equal success with the online program; I know that it saved me a lot of time and effort, and it was FREE!!!</p>
<p>Congrats, anxiousmom!
Glad to hear of your success. </p>
<p>I found the turbotax process amazing, like you. I did bail on actually filing online.
I still opted to print and mail. Maybe next year I’ll be more comfortable and will complete it totally online.</p>
<p>This is one concrete example of how life IS easier with a computer…:)</p>
<p>Already filed ours a few days ago. This was our 3rd year of filing online. I agree the programs are great; especially when there are tuition credits thrown in to really make you think (grrr!).
One thing that is cool is once you do it, if you use the same online service next year, it will remember all your info and automatically enter it in. Such as all family members SS#s, Employer’s name, address, tax ID, etc. Just remember your password…I had to try about 3 different ones this year b/c I couldn’t remember what the heck it was. Thank goodness I finally chose the right one!</p>
<p>DrDrewsmom-
I only tried the online filing thing because several coworkers raved about it the last few years. Your tip is what finally made me consider it.
My one friend said that it literally took her about 20 minutes to update her info and file for this year since the program saved all her last year info.</p>
<p>Makes me ALMOST look forward to tax time next year!</p>