2023 Taxes

[Jluke]

Attempting to do the free fillable tax form file on IRS this year.

first submission was rejected because my ordinary dividends were not matching on 1040 vs schedule b. Rounding issue so I was off by $1.

second submission was rejected because I missed the checkbox for capital gains since schedule d was not required.

waiting to see if any other errors.

for the most part I thought it was user friendly.

[kork13]

I normally use HR Block software to do our taxes (haven't even looked at starting them yet ... still awaiting the 1099s from Vanguard) ... However, last year I had to file separately for each of my kids, which was a pain, but I used the same free fillable forms from the IRS website. It really is a pretty good system, for what it is. Some of the blocks auto-calculated the math, which was nice, though strangely not all of them did so. Oh well. For a free option, it's pretty good. You just have to read the IRS publication instructions carefully, and it's not too hard. Just need to double/triple check everything before you hit submit. But then, I've been doing my own taxes for 20 years, and I'm a finance nerd, so I probably have a skewed opinion of "not too hard" ....

[Jluke]

I got my vanguard docs in January.

third attempt was successful.

says I can expect a refund within 21 days if no other issues.

definitely liked the electronic forms and my final answer was right, it was just the work that wasn’t 100% correct. E trade chose to separate out my dividends in different 1099’s so the total I had rounded up whereas when I took the two individual values there was no rounding on schedule b and I missed that. Thus the $1 difference.

the checkbox on schedule d was just an oversight on my part.

I knew my final refund amount was right as I confirm through both turbo tax and an excel file I created.

just need to do the state

[disneysteve]

I’m also waiting on our Vanguard 1099. I think they said it will be out by early March. I’ll get everything but that over to our accountant probably next week and just remind him that the Vanguard one is still pending. He’ll wait on that before finalizing our return.

[ua_guy]

This is a simpler year, so we've mocked up our taxes using Turbo Tax instead of sending everything off to an accountant. It's obscene what we pay in taxes every year, 2023 being no exception.

[bjl584]

I'm still waiting on a 1099 before I can file.
This year should be about like years past.
I'll owe a small amount.

[Jluke]

Refund showing in credit union account for deposit on Feb 14.

8 calendar days

[kork13]

::sigh:: I just realized that I'll have to deal with filing for my kids again... the threshold for unearned income is $1250 for 2023, and each of them received just over $1300 from the Alaska PFD ... Plus $100-$200 in dividends from their UTMAs. It's a bit of a pain, but technically cheaper to pay the taxes in their name vs. claiming their income on our MFJ return... Oh well. I've got their UTMA 1099s from Vanguard, just waiting for my brokerage 1099 (they estimate between mid Feb - early Mar). Then I'll take a weekend and pore through all the tax junk & get it worked out.

[srblanco7]

Our accountant just completed our taxes. Patting myself on the back for estimating our federal tax liability via spreadsheet - ended up owing only $225 and we'll get about $3k back from the State (will try to do better next year).

We filed for our kids as well and I gather, per a discussion with our accountant, followed the "rule of law" in keeping both as dependents (since we are responsible for more than 50% of their financial support) even though there's no real benefit to claiming them (they've aged out of the child tax credit and we aren't eligible for the education tax credit).

[disneysteve]

I dropped everything off to our accountant yesterday. Just waiting on our Vanguard 1099. He and I spent a few minutes talking about tax planning for 2024 especially since my income will be a lot lower. We also talked briefly about a withdrawal strategy but he deferred to our CFP since he (the CPA) focuses mainly on taxation and the CFP focuses more on principal preservation.

[kork13]

I got my Vanguard brokerage 1099 this week, so I did a first run at my taxes .... and found myself with my pants down!

Between ~$7.5k higher income, ~$10k lower itemized deductions, and $500 lower credits our bottom line tax is ~$2.5k higher this year!! So while last year we got an $800 return, now we're looking at owing ~$1300. As-is, we only barely qualify for the exception to not face an underpayment penalty. Looks like we're looking at ~7% effective tax ... so it's nothing outrageous, I just seem to have had my withholding too low.

Problem is that I haven't adjusted my W4 since probably early 2022, because the new form is so impossible to understand ... and our lives have been so dynamic (read: crazy & constantly in flux), so it's been hard to get a good forward estimate. As an immediate fix, I just went into my pay system & bumped up the "extra income" field on a new W4 by $10k, hoping that'll better account for our rental/investment/interest income... but I may not know what effect that has until the end of March! So if it doesn't start to withhold an extra ~$100/mo for me (whether too much or too little), I'll have to keep trying until I get it closer to right (or just try to force a specific extra amount).

Our MFJ return is not totally finished, because I realized I don't have the 1099R for my wife's disability pension. So we'll actually end up owing slightly more (though not much... only ~$240/yr of her pension is taxable). Plus, I'll need to run the returns for our kids as well ... they'll probably just owe ~$30-$50 apeice, since they only busted the kiddie tax threshold by a few hundred dollars this year. Ugh .... taxes this year is kicking my butt....

[disneysteve]

I got our Vanguard 1099 yesterday and shot it off to the accountant. Now we wait to see what the damage is.

I need to help DD with her return. She’s done it herself the last couple of years so she’s perfectly capable. She just hates doing it so I offered to handle it this year. Her return is fairly simple. One W-2. Two 1099s. Some medical deductions. Pretty straightforward.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I will start checking for mine. Right now certain things are in flux for us so my estimates have been way off for our taxes. I"m so annoyed at this whole capital gains in december crap. i never get things even close.

[disneysteve]

I will start checking for mine. Right now certain things are in flux for us so my estimates have been way off for our taxes. I"m so annoyed at this whole capital gains in december crap. i never get things even close.

Yep. Making any sort of meaningful estimate is always impossible because of capital gains. One year they could be $3,000 and the next year $30,000. I wish they were required to declare them earlier in the year when we still had time to compensate.

[Fishindude77]

Just got mine done and packaged up.
Heading to UPS to my CPA shortly.