What is your issues with Turbo Tax?
They can all deal with capital gains, although some require a more expensive version of the program. Many can auto import, you’d have to check whether one can support your particular input. Worst case you can enter them by hand, unless you have dozens of transactions it’s not hard.
I have been using TT Premier for years and have never had any problem reporting capital gains or losses.
Thank you – no issues with TT specifically! I just didn’t know whether it is considered generally reliable in terms of calculating capital gains and investment income. I feel fairly naive when it comes to investments and taxes so I wasn’t sure if I’m missing something. Apart from the debacle of my mother-in-law’s estate, our taxes had been straightforward because we are just salaried and had no investments other than retirement accounts. Only in the past few years have we added a personal, non-retirement, investment account which generates taxable gains, so I wanted to avoid obvious mis-steps.
I knew some people who used some sort of auto-trading brokerage that resulted in hundreds of trades per year. If they did not have a tax program that auto-imported, that would have been a very tedious job doing the capital gains and losses. The same may apply to a day-trader.
If someone has a large number of investment transactions to enter in a return, they should look to tax software that is good with importing data. I have used TurboTax for over 20 years. Never had a issue with it. Imports needed data well. Other programs do too from what I understand.
We are in a similar situation and use Turbo Tax. No problems so far.
Years ago, we had some special circumstances with our tax return due to estate, and I could not get TT to do what I wanted or I didn’t have enough guidance on TT to complete correctly. I filed our taxes and made an appointment with a recommended accountant - he spotted the issue immediately and got our tax return amended - with a large refund. He only charged the time he used - so I have recommended him to others.
I have noticed TT has been getting to be better software, while the standard deduction improving with Federal returns has made Federal return easier to process for many - I put everything in as it helps our State deduction accounting and tax return processing through TT.
Anyone else here thinks that the days of the so called “great resignation” and FIRE are over (and that many people who retired just for the heck of it will soon be back in the workforce)?
For Lean FIRE, maybe, but not the others. I still plan to FIRE/FAT FIRE. It’s a lifestyle movement. Many in younger generations value freedom to do what they want rather than working to 65 and they don’t need a lot of money to live their dreams.
And many more in the younger generation aren’t having children so their costs/expenses will be significantly less over their lifetime.
@BunsenBurner, with respect to people leaving the labor force, I think that lots of mothers dropped out of the workforce because they could not simultaneously work as homeschool teachers and mothers and have a full-time job. I think many will do the calculation and realize that the incremental improvement in cash flow from their jobs after tax, commuting costs, childcare and eating out more often is actually pretty small and they will decide to stay out of the workforce. What would be nice is for the country to change policy, but that is not going to happen. That is, all evidence that I’ve seen is that kids do much better when they are enriching environments from ages 1-4 as well as pre-K and K. Investing in universally available daycare that wasn’t absurdly costly would lure many of those women back into the labor force. But, that is not going to happen anytime soon.
[Relevant digression: I had a very talented female consultant in my firm who was doing very well (getting better and getting pretty well paid). She became pregnant without an active relationship and decided to have the child. Custody fight with the father (very strange) but she could not work as a global consultant as a single mother with no support and her income was dropping. I suggested she talk with two of the clients she worked with in Scandinavia and Germany about working there as they had universal daycare and more generous leaves than we as a small firm could handle. Both were interested. She took a job with one who gave her roles with limited travel for a few years. She is a senior executive.]
I think a lot of the Big Resignations were to switch jobs with more flexible conditions and higher pay. Many did not leave the work force. I assume that companies that are bringing new people in under a new set of rules(and pay structures) will apply those rules/pay structures to existing employees, but who knows.
With respect to early retirees, I think a fair number will come back out of necessity. Most Americans have very little retirement savings. When they have to dip into savings earlier, warning bells will ring and they will try to return to the labor force.
I’m not sure about the FIRE folks. Don’t know enough about them to speculate with any intelligence.
What about the fathers who dropped out of the workforce because they could not simultaneously work as homeschool teachers and dads and have a full time job???
And let’s not play the salary card. Take the gender out of the parenting card except when it comes to an active pregnancy inside one’s body.
I was not talking about those who had no choice but leave their employers like the mothers in your examples. I was talking about those who chose early retirement voluntarily to enjoy “quality of life.” When (not if) a deep, worldwide recession hits, unless these folks planned strategically, they might be forced to look for work. And remote folks will be the first ones on the chopping block - out of sight, out of mind.
Seems to me that is oversimplified. At least with respect to well managed companies. Who should be go in a downturn are those who are least productive. At many companies, some of the most productive people are remote. Getting rid of them simply because they are out of sight will be detrimental to the enterprise on a long term basis. That being said, I expect that some companies will make cuts on that basis but its because they are not well managed and just can’t help themselves.
You are right. The problem with the US’s approach to child care and day care and culture is that the burden still falls prematurely on the mothers. As a result, I’m pretty sure that what I read was that the data show that women dropped out of the labor force at disproportionate rates. But there were clearly fathers who dropped out for the same reasons. Thanks for the correction.
However, I do think it is important not to leave gender out on ideological grounds because we need to recognize on whom the burden predominantly has fallen, which is women. Let’s not pretend that males and females are bearing the same burden (other than active pregnancy).
Not sure what you mean by “let’s not play the salary card.”
It likely depends on whether the remote employees’ contributions are noticed and valued on an individual basis. If their contributions are not noticed and valued, or not strongly associated with them as individuals (the “out of sight, out of mind” situation), then they could be more vulnerable to being cut than similar employees in the office who may have stronger political connections through daily contact with others in the office.
@saillakeerie, there was a WSJ article about the fact that workers onsite will tend to get new assignments as they are talking directly their managers and seeing them in the halls etc. and hence there is a fear/belief that remote workers will not grow and develop as well. I heard a pre-Pandemic talk from someone in Google’s People Department (which is remarkably quantitative) that said that, IIRC, remote workers performed well and probably outperformed as solo producers (forgot the buzzword) but did not grow. I don’t know if that is still holds true. I’d guess somewhat as part of the growth involves developing relationships with others, which is harder to do virtually.
@BunsenBurner, I believe that there will be a big desire to return to the labor force among the early voluntary retirees but that after a year or two out of the market, they may be stale. More importantly, if there is a recession, they may not be fewer jobs and hence lower compensation.
I just meant let’s not assume that the male is the dominant bread winner for the family. IF there is a male in the parenting role. Parents/caregivers are parent/caregivers period.
I think it’s easier to make cuts when the manager and the employees has never met and have no relationship. Especially when you get a new manager who has no personal relationship with his employees. Sometimes they have no idea who’s vital to the organization.
I also see my younger relatives who have been remote. WFH feels a lot like unlimited vacation time with a little work. Working from one exotic location to another. Some of them are very hard working (the IB ones). The others not so much frankly.
It may not be everyone’s experience. But one I see.
I think that young workers see the work life balance is great when WFH. I wonder how productivity will be long term.
I was just discussing this with the owner of a fairly large startup the other day. His view is that the company is having difficulty in developing team spirit and a shared understanding of the way forward because so many remote workers have been hired who don’t know their colleagues at all. He’s very keen to get people back to the office ASAP.