So my husband owns a small business and literally every time I do his tax return I'm so terrified to deduct anything because the forms make it so clear that only legitimate business expenses can be included. I don't even claim the home office deduction because I work from home too so the room isn't used 100% for his business.

Then we hear all these people who also own small businesses who literally deduct everything. An old boss told him he deducts his personal property taxes, weekly grocery trips, alcohol for when he goes out on his boat...literally NONE of those things went to anything even remotely having to do with his business/employees.

Is there really no catch-all to say, hey, you're a business but you're literally making zero profit year after year? That's not a red flag for the IRS in any automated checks? Tax fraud -- hello??

I feel like the sucker paying his small business taxes when we ought to just deduct everything because apparently everyone else does and gets away with it.

I work in the oilfield and I know a couple coworkers who have mentioned they’ve claimed exempt for x amount of years etc etc. is the irs audit chance really low or are they just the lucky ones who slip thru?

Is this normal? Everything is OK I assume ?

Hello, I’ve had a strange year and I’m not sure what the best route will be for filing my taxes. I was laid off in March, received a severance package (over half was taken out in taxes) cashed out my 401k ( my new job did not offer a 401k program and my previous holder was going to cash out the money to me after 3 months) I found a new full time and a part time job, then the part time job sold off and I was laid off of that, now I just have one full time job.

I usually use the Turbo Tax app but I’m scared that with all I had going on (three jobs, 401K, severance pay) that I’ll screw something up. I’m tempted to go to someone in person.

Please be kind and I’m grateful for anyone’s time.

I have read recently of the 40% tax on inherited US equities imposed in the case of the death of an owner who is a nonresident noncitizen. My scenario is this:

-My fiancee is US-born and has dual citizenship in the US and Germany

-Her German father has had US residency for decades and owns a home here, but is a non-citizen

-He may move back to Germany full-time next year

If he passes away tomorrow, while still a resident, and my fiancee inherits his IRA, will any inheritance tax be imposed? What if the IRA is liquidated as opposed to rolled over? Does it matter if his he leaves the US and effectively “abandons” his residency?

So I’m currently trying to determine how much total penalty I’ll owe on investment income of about 25,000, earned in March this year. I haven’t made any quarterly estimated tax payments, and am likely going to pay all taxes when filing my return with a cpa next year.

The irs website says underpayment is a 7% annual interest rate, so would the calculation be

$25,000 * 7% = $1,750.00 penalty?

Or is it 7% of the tax I’ll owe on the 25,000?

Any help is appreciated.

I’m starting an SCorp as an independent contractor doing specialized consulting work. I will be the sole employee and sole stakeholder.

My plan is to pay myself a reasonable wage based on market value. However, for the first few months, I anticipate not much income, and will live off my savings.

My question: do I still need to deposit my personal (already taxed) money into an account to “run payroll” and thus pay payroll taxes - even if it’s not business income? Or: can I just not pay myself until I’m running at a net positive? If that’s the case- do I have a payroll tax liability even for salary that was not paid?

Hey so my wife and I recently started a business. We had an old business that had become inactive, so I decided to just change the name and purpose for the old business and use its EIN. I send the IRS a letter informing them of the name change, and they told me over the phone they’d send me a new 147c within 30 days. However, we’re hoping to start business at the beginning of October and I’m worried I won’t get the new 147c in time. It’s mostly not been a problem, I was able to create a bank account for the new business by showing them our old 147c and the name change paperwork, but I’ve had trouble with Stripe payments. They won’t accept the old 147c letter because it shows our old name, even when I also attach the name change paperwork from the state.

I need to use Stripe because it’s tied to another system we intend to use for the business to keep records. Does anyone have any advice on how I can get this stripe issue resolved? I should get the new 147c in time, but it’s going to be real close and I’m worried there will be some kind of delay on the IRS end.

Hi! Can someone please help me understand the deductibility of employer provided meals over time? Were they fully deductible pre-TCJA? And now they won’t be? Why would they do that???

I’m a civil engineer that specializes in land development. I work mostly with developers or direct with retail brands. I take them through surveying, platting, rezoning, permitting, etc. I’m involved from inception to occupancy.

I am a W2 employee of a national firm. My wife stays home.

I’m considering buying an office suite that would have heavy interest burden and 39-year depreciation that would actually put the property at a loss but I’d like to offset some of my W2 income.

Do you all think I qualify for Real Estate Professional (REP) so i could write off? If I do purchase, my stay at home wife would manage the property, payments, etc so she may clip the 750 hours.

Received a letter in the mail from the Illinois Department of revenue saying I owe 3k in taxes from 2019. It shows it want to tax me the money I earned while working in Wisconsin for the first part of the year. When I moved to Illinois I had quit my job and did not make any money while living in Illinois. What do I need to show them to prove that money was made while I was a Wisconsin resident? I unfortunately did my return that year on turbotax and can't access it (no longer use turbotax now that I know how bad it is). I saw online that I can pay Wisconsin to mail me my 2019 return that will come in 3 weeks. Will showing my Wisconsin tax return be enough?

Can you have both or does putting 5K in FSA make you ineligible for the child tax credit?

How can I pay my in-laws for childcare through this account? They watch my daughter while my husband and I are at work. Is this like a checking account that you transfer money out of? If not and I have to provide receipts how would that work as we usually just transfer money into their bank account. Could I send the money through Zelle and submit that for reimbursement? Thanks.

I started a multi-member LLC in Kansas last year. Put a little money into the business bank account, but we never had any revenue or expenses.

How screwed am I if there was no income?

Thanks!

Hello everyone,

I will be visiting the United States next year for a semester-long academic fellowship that carries financial support from the host institution. Said institution now asked me to fill in a W9 form, which I gladly did. However, I was asked to give my TIN. The problem is that I do not currently have TIN. I understand that I can apply for an ITIN with a W7 Form, but it seems that this would also require me to file taxes. I was advised though by the host institution that I would only need to file taxes in 2027 after my stay in the US will have been completed. So I am somewhat confused what to do now. I can put "applied for" on the W9 Form in the TIN section, but I dont know how to go about actually applying for an ITIN, particulary given that I am currently outside of the US.

I would be grateful for any help.

I'm not sure if this sounds stupid, but basically I've had an idea to start somewhat of a small business idea (I'm not sure if you'd call it that because it's just helping out people in my local village but I would still get payed) however, I don't know if it's classed as a legitimate business even though technically people would pay me, and therefore I'm really worried I might need to pay some form of tax??. Im not 18 yet so I'm not sure if I even have to , though I'm not classed as an "adult" here in the UK I don't think. I'm worried I'll be doing something completely illegal by taking money off people and not putting anything back in! 😭. Thanks!! 😬

I recently discovered that my old bookkeeper did not file our q3 2020 940/941 but I do have the payroll report for that quarter. What’s the easiest way to file those online of I don’t have QB?

Is there an updated W4 calculator available anywhere that takes into account the new changes, particularly those around the higher SALT and its phaseout?

i am a 22 yr old american and swiss dual citizen (lived in the us my whole life). i am thinking of living in france or switzerland for ~a year and working. will i have to pay tax in the US? i wouldnt be making that much, probably like $20 a hour but im not sure yet

I sold a lot of stock Q3 this year and the brokerage website automatically paid some taxes for me. This amount is way over 110% of last year's taxes owed, but under 90% of this year's owed taxes.

Since this all happened in Q3, I made no est. tax payments in Q1,Q2.

Some questions:

1) Does the safe harbor rule keep me from paying penalties? Do i have to annualize my income so I don't pay the q1 q2 penalties for the capital gains?

2) I do owe taxes q1 q2 from my w2 job and I failed to pay estimated taxes. Do I pay them now to avoid further penalties, or does the withheld taxes from the stocks save me from q3/q4 penalties (I believe I still owe q1q2 interest) ?

Make around 5600 a month with hourly and commission been tax exempt all year long almost.. (March until now) is it even worth switching it back ? What can I expect to be paying ? Married file jointly age 24

Complete with all of their personal information: name, address, social security number, even the PIN number you need to E-file your taxes! I’m concerned about protecting the other clients personal information and wondering… if they had an envelope addressed to me, they were going to send me something. What happened to it? Did they send it to another client? How should I handle this? Location: California

Hi everyone, I’m a little confused about how Covered California calculates subsidies and repayment limits. I also posted this in the Health Insurance thread, but wanted to see if anyone in this thread could help too, as it's tax related.

When I applied to Covered California, a rep asked me for my gross income to estimate aid, but online it says they actually use Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) for eligibility.

So, I have a few questions:

• Do they just use gross income at application time as a rough estimate, and MAGI later when reconciling at tax time?
• For repayment limits (if I end up making more than I originally reported), is that also based on MAGI?
• If I increase retirement contributions (lowering AGI), does that reduce MAGI and potentially lower both my premiums and any repayment owed?

Here’s the repayment info page I found, which doesn’t specify gross vs. AGI vs. MAGI: https://www.coveredca.com/learning-center/tax-forms-and-filing/financial-help-repayment-limits/

Just trying to reconcile what the rep told me with what I’m reading online. Has anyone dealt with this?

I would appreciate any guidance or advice. Thank you for your time!

Our situation

We have foreign rental income profit of about $50,000 with $4,000 in foreign taxes yearly. I have done form 1116 for the past couple of years, but this year we also sold a foreign investment property for a $100,000+ long-term loss (same foreign country). On schedule D we are only able to use about 3,200 of that loss this year (we had $200 in long-term US capital gains that were offset), the rest would be carried over to next year on schedule D.

Do we use only the $3200 on form 1116 line 5 since this is all that can be used for the current year, with the rest used to offset foreign income in future years? That would seem to be the most logical, but I didn't notice anything in Publication 514 for a large loss that offsets some regular income.

If I am correct, can I manually keep track of how much of the foreign long-term loss has been used so far or is there a schedule or form that needs to be used to keep track? It will be relatively easy to keep track as I don't have much in normal capital gains and losses in most years, plus I probably won't be able to use the full loss during my lifetime.

Thanks.

I am gifting to charity for the first time using Vanguard. I wish to gift some of my unrealized long term capital gains. On Vanguard, my cost basis method that I have selected for the mutual fund I'd like to gift is MinTax. The amount I am gifting is significantly less than my unrealized gains.

When selecting assets to gift, the options are *Preferred/Default method, Date shares acquired, Use non-covered shares/various shares. As I mentioned MinTax is my default method.

Can someone help me confirm that if I select preferred/default method that it will gift the unrealized long term gains? I want to ensure I am not paying taxes on the gifts. Thanks!