TAXES!

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oh man - that sucks.

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Sorry to those of you that owe the big bucks.
We owed a little bit ($80) to California. Don't know how that happened. Probably DH checked a few too many boxes when he did whatever paperwork at the beginning. Kind of annoying but at least we got a nice return from the federal gov't. We will use it for our vacation (road trip) in April

[migirl]

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I finished ours a few weeks ago and we just got our fed and state refunds direct-deposited on Friday. We got almost $2k in refunds, mostly due to tax credits for the kiddos. Otherwise we probably would have owed a very small amount.

Sorry for those of you who have ginormous tax bills. Yikes!

[Ladybug]

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Somehow Julia's newborn paperwork was lost at the hospital and she wasn't issued a SSN. Now I'm trying to get a SSN issued to her so that we can claim her, but I haven't even been able to get anyone to pick up the phone yet. This could take forever. Or longer.

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:thud: Sounds fun. In my post-baby sleep-deprived haze, I incorrectly entered Evie's SSN and got to chat up the IRS hotline.

[DCJenn]

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Done, back and in the bank. We got a little over 10k.

Read the financial posts to see WHY we get that much back. lots and lots o' mortgage payments, baby. We're seeing roughly 55% of our monthly net go to mortgage payments. It would mean one ginormous house except it's in two locations. Especially fun now that it's on the market and not currently rented.

Jenn

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We are done and were surprised to get a modest refund. It is all a crap shoot and I am thankful for all the dang mortgage interest we pay.

[PrincessFiona]

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We will owe ~$10,000 and that is after claiming no dependents and having the maximum taken out of dh's check... We qualify for the alternative minimum tax and can not deduct interest paid on our home or any of our children, etc....yippee.

[Sheherezade]

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We are done now, too. We also hit AMT for the second year. DH had max taken out of his check. We owe 2K more. He was surprised. We don't have a lot of deductions. He was pissed that we couldn't take more of a deduction for mortgage interest (it capped) but I was more pissed when we no longer qualified for contributions to my Roth IRA. I also think it sucks that they don't let you deduct interest from student loans the first year out from training (income limit is pretty low).

DH did some extra work this year as a expert witness in some trials. The pay was insanely good per hour - but we would have gotten money back on our taxes if he didn't add that in. Now, I have two reasons to give him sh*t about that work! He loved the Law and Order atmosphere but we didn't need the extra dough AND I didn't need him traveling three more times this year and at dinner meetings with lawyers in between. Maybe now that half that cash went out to taxes, he will drop the extra hours. Honestly, isn't the glamour of surgery enough for him? He needs courtroom flair as well? Maybe I should get him tights and a cape for Christmas this year.

Honestly, do any of you resident spouses look forward to having an attending DH with slightly more control over his time fill it up with extra unnecessary-for-income jobs?

Reading everyone else's posts almost makes me glad we are in the academic route. Salary with withholding makes this a little less painful. No quarterly taxes, no bonuses, no big surprises. We paid 2 K extra in taxes when DH moonlighted in fellowship as well. The self-employment tax situation really, really sucks.

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I also think it sucks that they don't let you deduct interest from student loans the first year out from training (income limit is pretty low).

That's my big rant right there.

Salary with withholding makes this a little less painful. No quarterly taxes, no bonuses, no big surprises

Ditto. Except this is our first year w/o surprises. Ours was complicated by working in KS & MO, 2 sources of income that together bump into a higher bracket which wasn't properly with-held, and a fun 1% tax just for working in the city of KC MO.

This year we over-compensated & had too much taken out. Hopefully next year we'll be like Goldilocks and get it just right.

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DH is employed so his employer pays that portion of the FICA tax. He is switching to a different pay schedule this year with the partnership (which would be base salary plus distributions or something that is NOT on a schedule). I'm not sure if we have to start with the quarterly taxes this year, specifically first quarter, which would be due 4/15 (with no corresponding "bonus" pay). We should get more of a swing of things after this first year.

[weeniegeniewife]

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We just finished ours and are awaiting our federal return; state was deposited last week. We are getting about $30K back, which is usual for us. We pay an unbelievable amount in self-employment taxes (I am self-employed in healthcare, too), and like Jenn, we have multiple mortgages that we pay on. Even with super-tight quarterly planning from our accountant, we still get this much back.

Which is a blessing, because our property taxes increased significantly this year due to the new house. So, it's all basically a wash!

It IS good to have them done, however.

[JaneDoe]

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The self-employment tax situation really, really sucks.

So true. It's the self-employment taxes that rack up the bill for us. We weren't surprised by our big tax bill, thankfully. Our accountant advised (warned) us that we would owe alot this year. So, the money is there, but just barely.

[Sheherezade]

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Why don't they fix that? More and more people are "self employed" as consultants. They don't get benefits and have to pay out of pocket for health insurance, etc. Add a nasty tax burden? It makes no sense.

Now, where is that number for the White House?

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It's been a while since I filed as self-employed but I seem to remember some sort of credit for part of the FICA paid (like what would usually be paid by the employer -- part of that?). It didn't seem the same though and I totally agree re: health insurance, retirement accts, etc.

The missing 1099 just turned up. Good timing since our taxes are done and just getting the final review. It should be easy to adjust the return though. Hopefully it doesn't cause much of a delay.