2020 taxes - how did you fare?

[myrdale]

I am filing my taxes this coming Friday. I am moderately excited. I have always filed "S0". In January of 2020 I switched over to "S1". My goal is $0 refund.

[Jluke]

mailed fed priority mail ($8) on 13-Feb. still hasn’t been delivered.

3-day priority mail was delivered March 2. 17 calendar days after dropping off at the post office

[disneysteve]

3-day priority mail was delivered March 2. 17 calendar days after dropping off at the post office

That sounds about right. I’ve heard so many post office stories like this lately, and had a couple myself.

I’ve switched to avoiding the mail as much as possible.

[Like2Plan]

3-day priority mail was delivered March 2. 17 calendar days after dropping off at the post office

Oh my gosh! That is so frustrating. I recently mailed a priority flat rate box from VA to Seattle on 16 Feb that arrived on 27 Feb that I thought was terrible. I don't think there is any recourse, either (such as the post office gets it there by 3 days or it's free postage.) The post office seems to hold all the cards. I've also read about some folks who receive their meds by mail and they were running out of medicine.

[Jluke]

Oh my gosh! That is so frustrating. I recently mailed a priority flat rate box from VA to Seattle on 16 Feb that arrived on 27 Feb that I thought was terrible. I don't think there is any recourse, either (such as the post office gets it there by 3 days or it's free postage.) The post office seems to hold all the cards. I've also read about some folks who receive their meds by mail and they were running out of medicine.

It’s eye opening and comical, sort of.

next up is how long until I see my federal tax refund.

[disneysteve]

next up is how long until I see my federal tax refund.

At least that doesn't involve the mail. I'm always surprised how quick those are - usually under 14 days and it's in our account.

[jenn_jenn]

I did an initial look using TurboTax last night and ended up about $1000 return from federal and another net $3000 return from state (we owe one state money and then a larger return in another).

However, we hired an accountant this year because we had several life changes and wanted to make sure we’re maximizing our return and doing it correctly. It’ll be interesting to see what he comes back with and how closely it matches my numbers.

Overall, we paid a lot more in taxes than we ever have which was to be expected because we made more and lost some military tax advantages.

[terri77]

I owe $1410 between federal & state taxes. I made adjustments as I could, but 2020 was a particularly lucrative year.

[riverwed070707]

$2,300 federal refund. $715 state refund.

Ironically, I thought I was going to be short on state taxes and have a penalty so I made an estimated payment of $600 to in December haha - would have been pretty spot on if I'd skipped that. A little unexpected but contributing factors for why I was off so much were 1) more rental expenses than usual (new roof on the 4 plex last spring) 2) Less rental income than anticipated due to my SFH not having income for 7 months with a non-paying tenant whom I couldn't evict due to the moratorium 3) I claim DD every other year and I got to claim her this year. Additionally, apparently there is a loophole where parents with joint custody could both claim the kid for the EIP 2 so extra $600 there I wasn't expecting.

[disneysteve]

Our return was e-filed 3/3. Our Federal refund hit our account 3/10. It's amazing how efficient they are with this stuff.

[kork13]

I got a letter in the mail today from the IRS...

I thought for sure that they had found something that looked funky with our tax return, and were letting us know that a full-blown audit was in the making.

Gratefully, false alarm... They were just sending a note to let us know (1-2 months after the fact) the amount of our second stimulus check. That was direct deposited.

Meanwhile, our tax return was filed on 27 Feb, and per their website, they still haven't approved it, let alone paid it out (thus my earlier concern about some error holding it up).

[kork13]

It seems I've figured out why our tax return is taking a while to get approved -- apparently any return claiming an unpaid stimulus credit (among a variety of other reasons) is getting manually reviewed, and between staff shortages & increased workload with processing new stimulus payments, those manual reviews are taking alot of time. They're still working through returns filed on opening day (12 Feb), and they're telling people to expect a delay into April -- I was 2 weeks behind that, so who knows when our return will actually get approved & paid out.... At least I know not to expect our for a while, so I can stop wasting my time checking....

Source: Washington Post. This article might be behind a paywall, apologies if so.

[QuarterMillionMan]

3-17-21 today on CNBC.

[Fishindude77]

Just heard from CPA. We had overpaid a bit for 2020, so applying that to 2021 taxes. Going to pay the 2021 taxes in a lump sum which isn't too bad anymore since I don't have any real full time employment.

[Leo]

Married, Federal is 1, CA is 2 in my W4.

Our salary combined around 200K. I'm already maxing my 401k and my wife maxing her traditional IRA. For the last few years, we always owe IRS at least few thousand dollars every tax return.

No kids, no other tax credit, nothing. Just simple W2 for both of us. No investments outside retirement at the moment.

Should we adjust our exemption/allowance to withdraw higher taxes every pay check?