Doing Attending Taxes: Am I crazy?

[spotty_dog]

Ah. Fidelity sends us a tax form with our dividends and distributions and things, and we input that into the TurboTax. Nothing flashed red on the TurboTax so it must be fine. Our taxable account is 70% as large as our retirement accounts, but it's just equity and debt investments, stocks and ETFs and mutual funds, nothing exotic.

[Ladybug]

I turbo tax. We don't qualify for any deductions. After a certain income it's very simple. No deductions

[spotty_dog]

Wait, wha? Are you saying your gross income equals your AGI equals your taxable income? That sounds like it should flash red on the TurboTax.

We hit a higher level with PEP and Pease this year, so our deductions and exemptions were less than with previous years.

[Deebs]

I think she's saying they hit AMT?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[spotty_dog]

But AMT doesn't eliminate deductions, it just limits you to above-the-line and certain itemized deductions like charity and mortgage interest. (We've actually been paying under the AMT rules for the past few years, because AMT gives us like $10 more tax than non-AMT, but obviously we still have to calculate under the regular rules too! So that doesn't necessarily simplify things either...)

[Deebs]

I agree, but that would be my guess. There aren't other scenarios that limit deductions the same way, are there?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[spotty_dog]

There's PEP and Pease. Both kick in at a certain high income level (about $310k AGI for a married couple -- AGI being, of course, what's left after deductions for stuff like retirement and health insurance, and business expenses for us self-employed peeps), and both start phasing out exemptions and deductions bit by bit as your income starts to climb. With PEP you can hit complete phase-out, so you in fact get to take zero exemptions for your dependents once you hit an AGI of $430-something. Pease also takes out more and more of your deductions as your income gets higher, but it has a cap.

[SuzySunshine]

Doing Attending Taxes: Am I crazy?

I have always done ours on Turbo Tax, this year I'm letting a CPA do them bc they changed a city tax which allows us to go back and file 4 years of amendments which I didnt want to do. Ours are also very simple bc we're in the top tax bracket and other then DHs W-2 we really only have charitable deductions.

Next year I'll most likely go back to do doing them myself.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk