Tax question

Discussion in 'General' started by LadyK, Jan 30, 2015.

  1. kcasepr

    kcasepr User

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    I use HR Block. We are at the limits of what the free online option can do. If you do anything more complex than simply reporting the self employment income you may need to go to a paid version. Be warned they will aggressively do a sales job with the free option. And they do have a special for those who are willing to buy a state package, which I generally don't. Wisconsin usually puts together a better set of forms than HR Block does.
     
  2. ladylilac

    ladylilac User

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    Found this on the IRS page when digging around and it answered a few small questions for me, so I am sharing:

    Who must pay self-employment tax. You must pay SE tax and file Schedule SE (Form 1040) if either of the following applies.
    1. Your net earnings from self-employment (excluding church employee income) were $400 or more.
    2. You had church employee income of $108.28 or more.

    *** Note that the $400 is from self-employment only, and not from overall income.
     
  3. ladylilac

    ladylilac User

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    How do I get the information to populate on the Schedule SE form?
     
  4. Flora

    Flora Admin
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    Both TaxAct and TaxTurbo will take care of that for you. They ask the questions and they will populate the numbers into the correct forms. At the end, you will see where it all goes. I don't even know what forms to use but they do and produce it for us by the answers we give them.

    I filed! I'm officially done with the taxes! Feels good to get it done early.
     
  5. ladylilac

    ladylilac User

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    Yay for you!!

    I will look at it again. It looked like it did not include the Schedule SE. I talked to an IRS lady and she was very stern about making sure that form was included. I do not want her wrath! haha
     
  6. Flora

    Flora Admin
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    I looked at my forms. Yes it is included in mine. They put my numbers into the SE form. They'll take care of that without you having to know it. I have 7 forms total if that helps.

    2 pages of 1040
    Schedule C
    Schedule SE
    EIC
    2 pages of Child Tax Credit
     
  7. ladylilac

    ladylilac User

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    I went back to look at the PDF and the only site that offered it without paying was FreeTaxUSA. I'd like to assume that TaxAct will look the same since they came to the same balance, but I just don't feel comfortable blindly trusting it. And I don't want to pay $15 to upgrade so I can see the forms before submitting (I mean, I'm trying to SAVE money dangit). The FreeTaxUSA does not have the Schedule SE filled out.

    So, I'm just waiting on customer service at this point. I really really need my refund as soon as possible so every passing day is just driving me crazy.

    But I don't want to submit the forms until I know everything is filled out in a way that will not have the IRS on my arse.
     
  8. Flora

    Flora Admin
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    TaxAct allowed me to view the forms before submitting which is why I went ahead and submitted it otherwise I wouldn't have. I printed it. Submitted it and printed it again. Didn't pay a penny to use TaxAct which is great because last year I used TurboTax and that cost me around $50.

    It's my first time to use it and I understand how you feel. I was skeptical to use it but TJ uses it and said it's fine. I got email confirmation that the IRS accepted my return so it looks good so far.
     
  9. ladylilac

    ladylilac User

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    I wonder why it isn't giving me the option to see the forms as PDF before submitting. I try, and it takes me to a link to upgrade. The only other option is the button to file. Maybe after I click that button, it will take me to the review page.

    When I'm all done with this, I'm going to try and write up something that explains the Self-Employment pages on these two sites to share here. Worst-case, it'll be my own personal reference.
     
  10. Flora

    Flora Admin
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    That's what I thought too. I thought I had to file or pay first in order to view my forms but I wouldn't do that. I was confused as to how. I contacted them and they replied as to how I can view my forms before submitting and they explained. Found it no problem. It's not too obvious. They replied quickly. Their reply:

    Dear TaxACT® Customer:

    It does appear that Schedule C is printing with your return. Are you sure you are printing the entire return and not just Form 1040? Try following the steps below to print your return and see if Schedule C prints along with Form 1040. If not, please let us know by replying directly to this e-mail and we will assist you further.

    IMPORTANT: You must first have Adobe Acrobat Reader® installed.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Hope this helps you. You should be able to view it before submitting so that way you know what you're submitting.
     
  11. ladylilac

    ladylilac User

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    I was able to get to the PDF at TaxAct (yay!), thank you.

    I have all the boxes filled out as referenced in the quote, but it still does not populate a Schedule SE. On neither TaxAct or FreeTaxUSA.

    For some reason, on FreeTaxUSA, box 32a is marked. Not so on TaxAct. I just spent the last 2 hours making sure the 2 sites had all the same information, so I don't know what I'm missing there.

    The IRS customer service, IRS web site, Tax forms themselves, and everyone here says I should be populating information on the Schedule SE. I can't find what I am doing wrong.

    If it weren't for the fact that I need to know how to do this next year, I would have just submitted without.
     
  12. Flora

    Flora Admin
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    Hmm that's odd. Maybe it's how you answered the questions which didn't produce Schedule SE? That is frustrating. Hope you can get to the bottom of it.
     
  13. ladylilac

    ladylilac User

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    I went ahead and filed as-is through FreeTaxUSA (been using them since 2006). I messed around with it a little bit and found that if I increased the amount I earned from mturk, the Schedule SE did populate. But in the end, the $401 didn't amount to enough to populate on either site. And although I wanted to write up a little how-to, I cannot because I'm not confident that I actually did it right (and because I looked at it so many times for so long, it all became a blur). Fingers crossed that I don't anger the IRS ghods. Good luck to you all!
     
  14. codered

    codered User

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    I'm a little late on getting taxes done compared to some of you. My question is this, how much did you make turking and how much were you taxed for those earnings? Mine seems awfully high.
     
  15. Flora

    Flora Admin
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    We pay 15% social security and medicare taxes. It varies for each person as to how much they pay depending on their deductions, whether they have children, file EIC and dependents.
     
  16. codered

    codered User

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    Right. Here's the deal... I made about $2600 in 2014 and when I enter that in, my refund goes from $238 to owing $805. Sounds ridiculously high.

    Using TaxAct, btw.
     
  17. Flora

    Flora Admin
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    Yes it does seem too high. For around 15% it should be around $400 if my math is correct.

    I used TaxAct also. Maybe you should go through it again to make sure. I also used TurboTax to see if the numbers matched and it did. You may wanna try it since they let you go through it but you'd have to pay to file so I stopped there just to see how it ended. I used TaxAct to file at the end since it's free. (for Federal only)
     
  18. codered

    codered User

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    I was about to say, because turking would be wasting my time if I am going to be taxed that much. I will definitely look over again and will also compare with TurboTax as I usually do. Thanks for the help. May need you again, lol.
     
  19. codered

    codered User

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    Yep...I put the total under gross receipts and boom...I go from refund to owing a bunch.
     
  20. raulbog

    raulbog User

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    Everybody faces the same 15% (actually 15.3%) combined social security and medicare taxes. That SE income is also reported on the 1040 form and is subject to the regular income tax that varies from person to person.


    You're paying the $400 in social security and medicare, plus about $650 in income tax. Sounds like you are in the 25% marginal tax bracket along with much of America.

    Just seems ridiculously high because if that $2600 were paid by an employer, $200 would have already been deducted from your checks for SS and medicare, $200 would have been paid by your employer for the same, and you likely would have had aneven larger amount of income tax withheld. You'd never even notice it at tax time.

    If you plan to never access social security or medicare based on you own earnings (eg if it makes more sense to use your spouse's benefits) then you have a valid point.
     
    #60 raulbog, Apr 3, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 13, 2015

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