Do you know about the back door method of contributing to a Roth? There is no income level for converting from a traditional to a Roth. So you contribute to a traditional and immediately convert to a Roth. This is more complicated and costly if you have other IRAs but can still be done.
Yeah, but then you’d have to work in KSA
But the positive would be that you could wear a burqa, which could come in really handy on those bad hair/face days.
@3bm103 yes, I am well aware that I can open a traditional, then convert, but it would just be nice to be able to do a roth directly.
Agree with this! We had an extremely complex return one year when I learned for the first time how much uncertainty exists in the tax code. For some situations there is no specific rule, only guidelines based on the outcome of previously litigated cases. We had an enrolled agent do the return, and she would also have represented us before the IRS if we had been audited. It’s been 5 years now and no audit, keeping the fingers crossed. Our tax preparer has been working for 20 years and never had a client audited, so I’m through with Turbo Tax.
My biggest peeve is the months long paper chase to collect 1099’s. We have to do my mom’s taxes now too and she has quite few charitable annuities that do not supply electronic records. We have to carefully sift through her junk mail to find the nondescript and cryptically worded envelops containing the precious documents. And for that matter why can’t the IRS provide a free, easy to use web portal for submitting taxes using any forms needed?
“What I don’t understand is why the ones who hate doing their taxes so much don’t just let somebody do it for them.”
It would take me just about the same amount of time to gather up all the info from password protected sites and explain what goes where to a CPA, and on top of that, I would have to pay them. Then I would have to proof everything to make sure all info is correct, because the IRS will go after me and not them if they messed up. No thanks.
"For some situations there is no specific rule, only guidelines based on the outcome of previously litigated cases. "
But those cases are the law until another court says differently.
^^ I agree, the worst part is gathering up the documentation and making sense of it. Infilling the data in a webpage is trivial.
Tech is supposed to make our lives easier… I decided to import our 1099 data from E*Trade into TT directly. It worked like a charm… until I saw that the last sale was imported as a blank line, and there was no way to amend or even to delete it! The fastest solution was to delete the 1099 and manually type it up.
Agree with the gripe that someone else had with AMT. I get it, I understand it - but heck, I don’t like it. We paid so uch this year between all these taxes that I was joking with H that one of us should retire.
The good thing about the taxes this year was that D could file as an independent and could get the American Opportunity Credit. At least she gets money back.
“And for that matter why can’t the IRS provide a free, easy to use web portal for submitting taxes using any forms needed?”
So far all the forms I’ve needed have been available through the IRS link at Free File Fillable Forms: https://www.freefilefillableforms.com/#/fd
But given the colossal pain of dealing with Happykids seven different W2s, I think I will keep printing out her stuff and mailing it in.
I can’t complain. Small refund from the Feds that offsets small payment to the state. Tax time is the only time during the year that I get some satisfaction out of sucking at trading. Oh great, I can offset some of my market generated long term capital gains with my consistently money-losing “trading” LOL!
As I have stated previously, I pretty much solved my income tax problem thusly: No income, no income tax, no problem!
OK, here’s a complaint. I got so sick of K-1s, I was determined to get rid of any “stock” like investments that generated K-1s. Sold one thing in January 2014, but of course I still get a K-1 for 2014. It arrived in the mail 2 days ago, which was about 2 weeks after we filed our returns. So, screw it, I am just going to ignore it and see if anyone notices. The amounts are pretty immaterial.
No real surprise!
Not quite. Tax contributions cover only 52 percent of what the government is spending. That is a far cry from stating that the 52 percent cover services we received, let alone we wanted or deserved. The entire reason of our deficit can be chalked to the difference between what we need and what the government believes we need and how they go about delivering with inefficiency and mismanagement.
Yep, that must be it! I wonder what the rest of world think about the US Aid making the world a safe place. Seriously, our public servants live in a parallel world.
Most of the posters are doing a good job keeping politics out of this thread. 
I dislike k1s…especially when I receive one in November.
:((
True, DS, but we ought to be able to roll our eyes and express our dismay when one posits we should be lucky --if not happy-- to pay little for what we receive by relying on overall misleading statistics and platitudes about worldwide safeties.
Ok, here is a departure from the “hate it tone” … with the software and internet, it has become so much easier to prepare the returns, including the extensions. This said, I wonder why the 4868 is so easy to file and the Form 7004 impossible without paying someone for the right to use the IRS pipeline. It seems that the system is built to generate penalties at the partnership level.
Fwiw, if you have to file any partnership, let the Proof of Mailing available at the PO be your best friend. You might be surprised that the IRS does not always accept the USPS express delivery. Live and learn!
I hate the AMT too. It was designed to keep people like Leona Helmsley from claiming so many losses and deductions that she didn’t pay any taxes at all. It has crept further and further down away from the 1% and just causes resentment like the marriage penalty.
Just FIX that stuff even if it means higher looking rates anyway!
yes, we got hit with it the past two years, and it makes my blood boil!
Well, one way to look at it is that many people would love to be making the kind of bucks where they would be required to pay AMT. The ol’ Glass-Half-Full approach.
(But I gotta say, just the worksheet in the 1040 instructions to see if you are required to pay AMT is a real PITA, so to go through the whole process must be a nightmare.)
What’s worse than paying taxes…TRYING like HECK to pay taxes and having both the IRS and the State send refund checks saying you’ve overpaid.
When my father died I took over making mom’s tax payments. He died at the beginning of the year. Mom filed taxes and I made payments, both for the filing year and the Q1 estimates. Oh silly me. I tried being efficient by paying via my bank’s ebilling system. Well, mom (and my!) payments were refunded. I was told that electronic bill payment was not really working all that well and to just send back the checks with note of explanation. Okay, I can do that…and I did. Several weeks later my mother receives yet ANOTHER IRS and State refund…saying she didn’t owe. And not a week later a letter arrives saying my father has not paid his outstanding tax bill. WTH!!! Longish story made shortish…I made the mistake of paying mom’s taxes under HER SSN (hey, dad was dead, I applied the ‘what would a reasonable person do’ criteria) . But, since Dad was the primary filer both IRS and State could only figure out how to apply payments that came under HIS SSN. So mom’s SSN tax account showed an overpayment and Dad’s showed amount due plus penalty. It only took about 3 hours total hold time (hey, if you’ve been on hold for 57 minutes and it’s now quitting time…well…the nice recording says…please call back during business hours…so you get to start the hold process all over again.) to gain an understanding of this alternate universe. I was told they could transfer the funds from mom’s SSN to deceased dad’s SSN but mom would have to give permission.
Oh yeah! Let’s get the 90 year old woman who has hearing difficulty on the phone to answer questions posed by an English challenged agent. After I finally got it all resolved I asked what were to happen if my mom simply ‘took’ all of ‘dad’s’ money and left for Bermuda…shouldn’t be a problem right?! After all…she didn’t own any taxes…Naw…that wouldn’t work I was told, they would come after here because she’s the spouse and is liable for the tax bill. Which, remember…she couldn’t pay!
Sigh… you’re tax dollars at work.
Decades ago when my family lived in England, and later the Netherlands, if one worked for an American company one could choose whether to be paid in the US or the UK. Everyone chose to be paid in the US because the taxes were MUCH lower.
There are many inequities in the tax code. When S was a toddler, I went back to work and he spent 3-5 days per week in daycare. People whose companies had boutique benefits could choose to pay the fees in pretax dollars. But in order to be able to offer that, your company had to hire an outside administration firm and pay them to manage benefits. This made no sense for companies with fewer than 16 employees. (Which may well include a majority of working parents.) So my employer, a small MIS consulting firm, didn’t offer it. I had a friend with an S in the same day care. She paid almost 30% less than I did for this reason, if you consider the marginal rate…