Anyone nervous to do their taxes?

goodeats

DIS Veteran
Joined
Aug 6, 2005
I have no idea how it's going to fall out. The child tax credit increase and reduced phaseouts will be good, but the reduced SALT deduction and no exemptions scare me. I also have some self-employment income and I've heard there's a new deduction for that, but I haven't done any research yet.

Anyone been pleasantly surprised?
 
I was happy, but not surprised. I am getting a little less than expected, but still enough to cover most of our June trip. But this should be my last year getting a good refund, due to children’s ages and college circumstances. Good luck!
 
I am curious too. I also have some self employment income and wondering what the new deduction is?
 
I am nervous. It is the first full year with the job I have now so I don't know how it will turn out.
 


I'm a tax preparer and I'm nervous! Our clients usually somehow figure it's OUR fault if their refund is less than last year. Last year I remember trying to explain to one woman because one of her kids aged out of the child tax credit and another quit school, yet all she knew was her refund went down so it must be our fault.
 
I've calculated mine with my spreadsheet (I make a tab for each form I need then plug in the formulas with links to the other sheets so entries link/update elsewhere as needed) and thought we'd have to pay $2-3k with the reduction on SALT but that was offset a bit by the lower overall tax rate, so the rough draft says we should get $1,650 back. Now I go and put my data into TurboTax and TaxSlayer and see if they both agree (in most years the three are very close), and then send off the return with one of those...
 
I'm a tax preparer and I'm nervous! Our clients usually somehow figure it's OUR fault if their refund is less than last year. Last year I remember trying to explain to one woman because one of her kids aged out of the child tax credit and another quit school, yet all she knew was her refund went down so it must be our fault.


That is crazy.
:crazy:

It's simple math (and some common sense.) It very clearly states what the child's age is to get the tax credit. We out-earned it for the last few years that our youngest was age-eligible. Now that they raised the income limit, he's too old for it. Blaming the tax preparer for a low refund is like blaming the doctor who tells you that you have cancer. :rolleyes:
 
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I am curious too. I also have some self employment income and wondering what the new deduction is?

My cursory search tells me it's a straight 20% off your net income/expenses for sole proprietors. That would have been better for me last year when I had more 1099 income.
 
Eh. Our 4 kids have been aging out of the tax credits for the last 7 years. Our youngest this year.

We decreased our charitable contributions and paid off our house- so lower deductions. But all that has changed anyway. The last few years, kids college scholarships and little increases in income have made taxes hard to predict. Dh is an accountant and has come close with estimates the last few years. He and I both made withholding adjustments last January so we'll see what it is. It will be what it will be.
 
I was worried to but just didn’t mine and my husbands.years past we did married filing separately because he was in a higher tax bracket then me but this year we were actually able to claim jointly and did not to badly about the same what we got filing separately last year. First year we got the full child tax credit.
 
Just got off the phone with my CPA. He says things are off to a very very slow start this year. So slow that HE, not his secretary booked my appointment.
Off the top of his head, he said he expects the changes to have almost no impact on me.
 
DH and I did a “what-if” tax scenario in August last year, and figured out we were probably way underwithheld.

So-we increased our withholding a bunch to hopefully come out even.

I don’t care if we don’t have a refund, I just don’t want a huge liability either.
 
I realized I was being underwithheld and adjusted accordingly but too late. Loosing the standard deduction and the limit on SALT hurt a lot. Looks like we will be about 2k short
 
Our refund has been dwindling the last 4 years or so but this year, from my very initial calculations, our refund seems to be back up a couple hundred. I expected to lose the refund or pay some so I'm pleasantly surprised.
 
The last few years, kids college scholarships and little increases in income have made taxes hard to predict.

dd graduated in june-i'm SO glad this is the last year we have to deal w/college scholarship stuff (and it drove me nuts each year when her college newspaper would do their annual 'man on the streets' interviews w/students around tax time and all of them would say 'oh, i only get grants and scholarships so i don't have to deal with taxes'-i want someone, somewhere to tell them that 'yes, depending on the source/the type/the amount/your allowable college expenses-you might have taxes due':sad2: there's a reason the irs has a publication dedicated entirely to the subject).
 
I 'do' my taxes in an Excel spreadsheet and then transfer the numbers over to the form. When they announced the changes last year I made the appropriate adjustments in my spreadsheet and we should come out just fine. We always have to wait on some investment paperwork to get absolute final numbers but should have that in hand soon. I downloaded the 1040 last week and almost fell over. It is only 23 lines long! I used to do volunteer tax prep through the VITA program so I am very familiar with the forms and schedules. Dang, it is streamlined now! From my calculations we will either owe about $500 or get back $500; somewhere in that range anyway. No problem to pay out of savings if we owe; any refund heads to the cruise fund!

From conversations I overhear at the office, many people did not understand that the tax changes went into effect for the 2018 tax year. Many Americans are in for a surprise this filing season!
 

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