It's that time of year, TAX RETURN TIME!
 

For the past 2-3 years I have started a thread about what people were going to spend their tax return on. While greeted with some hostility, most people actually enjoyed the threads. I don't know how much I will get back, but I have some big plans for it!

I am going to try to pay a grand or so on my wifes car (We owe 3k). I am going to try and slide as much as I can at my wife's student loans (only owe 11k). Outside of those two debts, we don't have anything else luckily, because I pay out of pocket for school (ouch).

My next step depending on how much I get back would be to put at least another grand into our house fund. I live on James street, and I have designated our house fund as "Operation James Street Freedom". I would like to put some money into my IRA, currently it has none. Give my wife a little extra walking around money.

I think the last thing I would like to do is give some money to our Deacon fund at my church. This is a fund that is given by church members and distributed to the needs of the church and community if need be by the Deacon board. This fund has helped a lot of people in very bad spots, and it's my duty to help out my fellow man. Our church also houses the food pantry for our community, and we received emails saying the food pantry is direly low, they have served more families this month than ever before. So I would love to take a hundred or so and buy some food to donate.

What dreams do you guys have? I know most of the people here will probably pay down bills, but its fun to dream anyways.

inb4youareanidiotfornotinvestingit

I shouldn't pay as much as I did last year, but any tax savings I'm going to use to purchase lube for next year.

But if you're going to put it towards debt, I wouldn't split it up, I would put the entire portion that you are putting towards debt in the single liability with the highest interest rate.

Best of luck bud.

I can't even remember the last time I got a return. As usual, I owe once again. :huh:

All tax "refundage" will be going towards a Vegas fund for September.

1) payoff credit card
2) payoff knee surgery
3) pay for personal training for a number of months
And if possible
4) go on a trip to Sedona or something reasonable like that.

Am hopeful to get a nice return this year. I have struggle all year just too keep up with bills. Hope no one can garnish any of it uhg. I want to pay off as much as I can of the trailer I'm buying. It's nice enough & cheap enough that once it's paid off just something I won't have to worry about other than lot rent. I sure like buying my own place rather than paying rent and never get anywhere in order to save money.

I'd like to fix this place up much nicer and redo the front and back porches.

I'd like to get a Playstation 3 so I can get Madden 2014 with Geno Smith as the QB of the Chiefs. My daughter will have other plans :doh!:

We are just going to buy furniture. We bought a pretty big house (2,300 sq ft for the fiance and I), and there are still basically three rooms that are completely empty.

My uncle is a shareholder with Nebraska Furniture Mart (Berkshire technically I think) and every year in Omaha they have a shareholders only sale and things are dirt cheap. Most furniture is about 50% off of what you would pay in the store on a daily basis.

LOL, yeah right

Pay off 1,189 on a credit card, then pay a year ahead on car insurance(because im about to be forced out of my job to stay in school). Then fix the transmission on my quad.any extra money is for my AR build.

house principle

cant do that

bad person

ban

murder

hey hey hey ho ho ho

Man...12 posts in and I am the first with,

Going to spend it all on "Hookers and Blow"

I wish I owned a house, because it would be nice to pay towards something.

yeah but it also sucks that you know you'll be paying like $150,000 more than your actual house costs because of interest

True. It still sucks renting though, that money goes straight down the drain.

I try and break even, why would you want the government holding your money and making interest on it when you can already have it?

don't get a huge return.

i always wanted to keep even with the government, don't want them to use me as a savings account and I dont' want to owe....stay right in the middle with a small return..

I have been audited the last two years so this year I can't wait to get the LETTER...

because sometimes it can be really difficult to accurately calculate how much tax you will owe

and I definitely want to make sure I don't have to pay at the end of the year - that's a kick in the nuts for sure.

also it's nice to give yourself a little present at the end of the year.

I'm with you here... I stay even and pick up a couple hundred from st and fed.

I made a lot of charitable donations and worked a lot of pro-bono hours this year. As well as paying in much more than my bracket dictates...I'm hopeful for a solid return. If so...it's high time to buy my girl a ring. We've been together 11 years in June. High School sweethearts. We've both been putting off engagement until we were financially stable, so it's not just my fault, lol.

good for you!

Exactly.

Congrats!

What a great thread!

It almost reminds me of this one from 3 weeks ago:

http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=268635

Putting a wood stove in my basement, I am tired of being molested by the oil company.

Great investment, well worth the cost.

Audited two years in a row? What kind of red flags do you set off?

Well, it depends on the size of the loan. I did some calculations on various size loans. And as of the rates a couple years ago, you could about count on paying double your principle on a 30 year amortization excluding any PMI. I can't remember if that included property tax or not, I don't think it did. Either way, it's good enough for a rule of thumb. Borrow 100K for 30 years, pay 200K total. So yeah, that's as good of a case for paying extra principle if there ever was one. And the hell of it is that interest rates are low!

Mother **** that! Is it a full audit or just asking to verify aspects of your return?

Claimed his name was Saddam Hussein.

added dog as a dependent

I think they audit you once and then follow up the next year. Particularly if they find anything.

the audit surrounds my stock options...

The IRS wants me to claim the option at full sale price like lets say 240 shares at $40.00.

Well it is an option so I only own $24.00 of that not all 40.00!!! So instead of $9,000 I only get $5760 which once taxes are taken it is more like $3000 if you are lucky... (just an example)

So I get this letter saying I owe like 50k and I about flip out...

With my tax guy being a MORON he never filed it all that accurate! WTF..

Needless to say it was a big pain in the ass and you are right... they will audit you a few times after the 1st one...

dont finance for 30 years.

I sat down and ran some numbers recently, and based on recent trends in college costs, I should be saving between $900 and $1,400 a month if I want to pay for 100% of my kids college. So ya, tax return may end up in their 529 accounts.

So do you have to file ammended returns with the correct information or what?

Who was your tax guy and why the **** can he not do taxes?

maybe you don't know how much my house cost on a 15

I looked at my paycheck today, and it it's interesting. About 35 percent of my gross went to taxes and another 17 went to my IRA, so I got home with less than half my gross pay.

17 eh? Nice. How much do they match?

Well, it depends. For people that are regular wage earners and the house is going to be their only major purchase in their lifetime and they are comfortable with the costs of money as long as they can make the payments, it isn't that bad of a deal.

You have to worry about ROI, most regular homeowners don't. And depending on life goals, that can be OK.

maybe it doesnt really matter. maybe you spent more than you could REALLY afford.

Fixed.

How do you know what I can afford? I just don't enjoy paying interest.

i didnt finance my house for 30 either.

i'm just saying if you want to bitch about the amount of interest paid on a home note shorten the note

i dont know what you could afford. again if you dont like paying interest finance it for a shorter period of time.


simple

oh you mean i should put 0 down on a new car and finance it for 5 years?

Damn... 35%?

After 401k contributions, taxes, medical, LTD & HSA contributions I only take home about 55% of my gross.... but 35% aren't to the government.

Heh. Coincidentially, I got pretty close to doing this. I ended up putting 2,000 down on a 3 year note and the car was used, but still. I had enough for about half the cost of the car, and the interest rate was so low that it was going to cost me like $200 to hold on to the rest of the cash.

I probably could have got away with nothing down, but they would have had to re-run the application, so I just put 2,000 down. But hell yes I will maintain the ability to access my money for $200 in interest.

You have long term disability?

I'm quite a ways removed from the insurance industry, but why LTD? And why not STD with it? If you don't mind me asking. I'm not criticizing, just curious on the logic.

The company provides STD to all employees. The LTD is an additional option.

Makes sense.

Perhaps I should be looking into that type of insurance since I'm much more likely to need it in my industry than the normal office job, but at this point, I can't justify the cost.

Are you thinking you are protecting yourself against the car wreck/cancer types of risks?

i was thinking more like 7 years, and make sure you borrow some money to put some wheels on it too

Any type of long-term risk that would prevent me from working. I travel often, I live an active lifestyle, I sometimes work around large machinery and hazardous material. Anything can happen.

LTD @ 60% of my annual salary if I can't work anymore is worth the 0.4% of my gross salary that's deducted.

Well yeah, if you can get a 0% interest deal or something close to that, do it.

You know what I meant.

It was 2.0% money and not any special deal or anything. And it is probably a length of loan deal. My buddy looked into financing a car at 6 years instead of 3 and his rates were much higher. I don't remember how long he tied it up for but it wasn't 6.

I just thought it was funny that you were being sarcastic and I just did almost that.

ROFL

I may have to look into that some. Although it is really difficult to calculate what you need over the long term with inflation. I've got probably 40 more years of work left and I have a hard time calculating insurance that far out.

Maybe I'll just keep bought up on life insurance and have my wife throw me into a driveshaft if I can't work anymore.

Yeah - when I bought my car I put about half down and then financed 5yrs @ 4.24%. This was through the dealer and necessary to get something like $2500 in rebates. After a couple of months I went and refinanced 3yrs @ 1.99%.

Win.

Nice.

The 60% is just what's offered through our company LTD option. I'm single with no dependents and, at least right now, 60% of my salary is more than my annual expenses. Once I have a family, dependents, etc. it will all change.

Yeah I am all set now and the tax guy gets shit on by the IRS because he is certified. Not for sure but I think IRS gets all over them after a certain amount of errors? If anyone knows I would love to know.. Anyways I fired him..

but just the back and forth with the irs is not something anyone should have to look forward to...

Yeah, they have an obligation to file taxes correctly and I don't know what is an acceptable error for preparers. I'm pretty sure it matters whether he is a CPA or just a certified tax preparer. Either way, he's feeling the pain too.

Your new guy should help you with the IRS. You'll get billed, but I'd let handle it.

thanks

Got my appointment with H&R Block today at noon. Am hoping for a good return I do need it.

Smart guy right here. Always pay off the highest interest first. All of it. No division. Less interest will equal more walking around money for your lady.

This is the time of year that I'm normally going to the bank to pay my tax deposits and watching people who haven't thought about working in years get their $6k "refund" counted out to them in front of me.

With this economy believe me, we're all getting gonnasyphaherpaids.

All for popping out babies! Tell me THAT'S not welfare. :shake:

THEY HAVE A HARD LIFE THEY DESERVE IT OBAMA NO GUNS AND TIP WAITERS!

I am always amused by people that don't adjust their taxes so they get no return (where applicable) because that just means you over paid all year and gave the government an interest free loan with nothing to secure said loan with....


Oh and for all the people that haven't noticed.

FICA tax went up roughly 4 percent 1/1/13.

I keep waiting for the day I get my "you're broke here's your tax break" return...

LOL You forgot free phones! TO DC!!!

Why should you be rewarded for doing the right thing?

ring ring ring obamaphone

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We buy the H&R Block Deluxe computer program. It is really easy to use.

I plan on using alot of it to fund a summer vacation.

Moar Babies!!!!!!

same the rest is going into savings

For those of you that make under something like 56k and file normal returns, don't pay for it. You don't need too. Check out irs.gov for sites that allow you to file for free.

Sounds fair to me.

No illegitimate children this year = +1

No dependance on government funds/programs = +1

Worked. Was employed. Did not leach off others to make a living = +1

Those sound like good reasons to me to get a tax break.

I know - I'm a dreamer...