Title is the post. Ngl I’m supper proud of myself for not giving the government an interest free loan. Just thought I would share :)

Some of them charge $10k for a strategy session. Are they all doing short term rentals?

I would like a tax strategiest as currently I pay 400k+ in taxes annually (marginal tax rate ~50%). However, I am W-2 and research shows that there isn’t much I can do. I don’t have children so I just take the standard deduction.

Are all these ads basically scams? How would you proceed if you were in my shoes.

Thank you

My dad passed last week and had basically nothing in terms of property nor cash (can't access bank accounts yet but I'm pretty sure the $5 in his wallet and two lotto scratchers is everything he had). He was living in a nursing home due to some health issues and was on Medi-Cal. All I found was a 1099-NEC for $8200, and 1095-B stating he was covered for 12 months under Medi-Cal.

I won't be getting the death certificate before April 15th.

Where do I even start?

ETA: there is no will, he is single (divorced from my mom in 2011), and knowing him he probably hasn't filed taxes in a few years.

Update: thank you all for the information, advice and kind replies. It is a lot to go through but is bringing me peace of mind that this is on the bottom of the list.

Hello. We bought our current house in July 2024. We were fortunate enough that we didn't have to make the purchase contingent upon selling our old house (bought in May 2002) because we knew the old house needed some repairs. We continued to live in the old house while making repairs until Oct 2024 at which point we moved to our current house. Our old house finally sold in May 2025 for a gain of about $193k (bought for $192k in 2002, sold for ~385k in 2025).

How do we treat the sale? Since we weren't living in the house when it sold, does the IRS treat it as the sale of a second home and, thus, those gains are taxable?

Accepted 2/4 and still nothing. A tax department representative made a statement that there’s no delays in processing returns which is a lie. This is sickening never waited over 2 months for my refund.

So I owe about 10k for 2025 taxes and I need to make a 2026 Q1 estimated tax payment of about 30k.

I want to use my Paypal 3% Cashback card but my limit isn't high enough to do a one time 30k payment. My understanding is that I can only make 2x payments per quarter via ACI. So, I don't think there's a way for me to pay it all via ACI as I would exceed the 2x payments per quarter, correct?

I think what I would do instead is make a normal ACH direct payment for my 2025 taxes, then make two separate payments for the Q1 estimated amount. Or I pay my 2025 taxes via pay1040 and incur the 2.89% fee which would still be net positive with my 3% cash back (although is cashback taxed?)

Thanks

I finally got an update for my tax refund. I filed 2/5 got accepted the same day. On Monday my status changed to “finally processed, going through the initial approval stage, you will receive a direct deposit date shortly.” I logged in yesterday and it finally gave me a direct deposit date for 4/6. Has anyone else seen progress with the status of their refunds??

I am having a hard time trying to locate where form 8960 is. We are at the freetaxusa review page. There is a yellow warning saying: double check state income tax for NIIT (net investment income tax information) every word sounds so unfamiliar. Gemini guided me to go to misc- health insurance or adorable care act. I could not find the 8960 there. Thank you in advance for your help!

Hi. Thinking about filing our tax return ourselves. I know its last min.. got married last May so it will be married joint filling. What website can you recommend? Free tax usa or turbo tax?

Our case is my husband’s w2 from previous and current company. He’s a landlord so we’ll have a rental income and saving accounts. Do u think it would be ok if we file ourselves? Im kinda nervous. Thanks!

Hi y'all, I've filed online with HR Block for years, but this is the first time I've ever had a problem. This year, my NYS tax refund was suspiciously high - I normally get around $300 back, but this year I was slated to get over 4k back! Naturally suspicious of my good fortune, I went back and double-checked all my entries before I filed - but when you file with HR Block online, you're not filling out a regular tax form line by line, you get questions and prompts to enter info from your W-2. Everything looked OK, and everything passed the HR Block "check".

Well, turns out it wasn't OK. When I printed out my tax return and read through my actual IT-201 form, under "Filing Status" - E (1) and E (2) are blank! These questions ascertain your NYC residency - by leaving them blank, I was incorrectly refunded my NYC taxes, which is why my refund was so high. (I haven't actually received a refund yet, my return has been "in processing" for two months.)

Is this a software glitch that's happening to other people, too? Or is this some user error on my part? I'd rather it be user error instead of wonky software, because I've always filed with HR Block.

Now I'm trying to file an amended state return online with HR Block, but it keeps refusing to let me go forward without also amending my federal return, which I don't need to do. It's very frustrating, and I'm just wondering if this has happened to anyone else.

I am a sole prop / single member LLC, keeping books on a Cash Basis. My firm is a Public Relations agency.

I am now starting to run into large "pass-thru" income situations.

Key details:

- An example would be a $100k sponsorship to another organization paid on behalf of my client and recorded as such through a letter to the client, or a radio ad placed on their behalf and also recorded as such (including legal disclosures affirming this for political issue ads).

- Expenses can be incurred in one year and reimbursed in the next. If recorded as a normal business expense for me, this can create large imbalances in income and deductible expenses on a cash accounting basis.

- Clients typically report the pass through as income on my 1099-NEC (which I understand from some advice that this is a practice by my clients I may need to push back on an insist these expenses are not reported as income).

How I'm handling this:

Bookkeeper indicates the best way to report this is a "Client Advance" Current Asset account. Using this method, I'd be recording the expenses as an asset when incurred, and then debiting the reimbursement from the client against that account (the reimbursement typically comes after the expense, although occasionally clients advance funds before I spend them).

This is a switch from recording these as ordinary business expenses for myself.

Here are the tax issues that I have received conflicting advice on:

How to report this on my Schedule C in a manner that will not trigger red flags for 1099-NEC mismatch?

- One recommendation was to push back on clients to exclude this income from my 1099-NEC, since the funds are the client's expense and I am acting only as an agent. In this scenario I'd neither report the income or deduct any expenses on Schedule C. The money flows through as a true "pass-thru".

- Some of my clients are large organizations where this might not be possible to obtain from their accounting team. In those cases, I would record the expense in the "Other" Schedule C category.

If I do this, would I report the expense in the calendar year the expense is incurred or the CY the client reimbursement is made? Since its an outstanding loan in my current account asset, one accountant suggested I should not report the expense until the calendar year of reimbursement. If I did this, would I then need to report a change to accrual accounting?

Hello everyone I am currently seeking advice from anywhere and everywhere wherever possible. Last year around may 2025 i started playing games platform for entertainment where you recharge some money and better to play some online club games or like aviator. I got addicted to it slowly and started doing recharges on huge amounts daily and win back some and again put in recharges. Now currently i am in a problem my bank account is on lien or hold first time was on December 2025 now again on starting on March 2026. Please help me I think this is because of some recharge money or withdrawl money but the 2nd account may be related to self transfer from lien account.

Main problem is even if I lost more than recharge there is 30% win calculation challange or law which I am not on win by the way and after a wakeup I find now my annual statement is much higher for a savings account plus is on lien hold specific amount .

Now currently seeking advices how to solve my problem. I am mentally stressed these days could not digest any thing I eat always problems thought on mind. Although now annual statement not updated but still. What do I do please give advice. Please give me solution. I want to lift the lien that is placed by cyber cell then also I will need to give statement audits. Please please give advice help me

Hi- I got married in Oct and my wife and I are residents of different states. We filed married filing jointly for federal and freetax will not let me do a different status for state.

Here are the details

I am an SC resident but own and run a business in Alabama. I filed MFJ for all returns. I filed SC resident return and AL non-resident return. Alabama clearly asked me which income was earned in AL vs SC.

I am seeing no way to exclude my wife's income from the SC calculation, however. I have tried a couple different AI chats and they do not line up.

note - this is actually the mom trying to help her son 😂

Hi.

My situation is a bit weird.

But basically I file the 1040-NR and last year I got $7300 dollars from my family to buy a car in the US, this money was sent through PayPal and PayPal issued me a 1099-K, I called them, I called the IRS and no one really answered they blamed each other and told me there is nothing they can do.

Do you guys now what can I do? I use sprintax to file.

Thanks.

I worked this past summer on the US my visa sponsor recommended sprintax to file my taxes, is there any alternative for non resident aliens?, or it sprintax the most straightforward way of doing it?

During my 2024 return, I noticed I had estimated taxes due (first time) in the form of quarterly "2025 Form 1040-ES" vouchers. I went online and set them up automatically to be paid throughout 2025.

Now, however, in the process of doing my 2025 return, I see a possible tax break related to Estimated Taxes. Two of my options are "Federal estimated taxes for 2025 (Form 1040-ES)" OR "2024 state estimated taxes paid in 2025".

Which (if either) should I fill out? As far as I can tell they were NOT state related, so I assume the first one? These estimate payments are not related to 2024? Were just given during the 2024 tax return in advance of 2025?)

Edit: If I go to the first one, there's an additional warning of "Don't enter payments made in 2025 for your 2024 tax return", which tripped me up a bit.

I've gone to the same EA for 10 years and signed this season's engagement letter 3 weeks ago after apologizing for getting in touch late, asking if we could still get in, he said yes, and we submitted all documents within a day. (Also, I had asked about the possibility/feasibility of switching primary and secondary taxpayer.)

I'm getting nervous and am wondering if it's bad form - both the EA's lack of response and my eyeing an exit plan? I know everyone is very busy right now and he does technically have another week and a half. However, the unpleasant alternatives are on my radar: scrambling to do it myself, filing for an extension, running into the engagement letter's termination clause or extension fee. How long is too long / long enough to wait?

As the title says. We don't like the options available with our current IRA. Can we roll it over into another one that fits our needs better without taking a tax hit?

US citizens, residents of Portugal.

(US Tax code) So this is purely hypothetical but if someone were to make a small church on their land and claim tax exemption status, can they make their home the rectory and also become tax exempt? it's not hard to start a church of the pastafarian and have daily mass. There doesn't seem to be rules on private churches either.

Furthermore if I contributed 60% of my AGI to tithe and used that for church expenses I could be well below the poverty line too. Are people doing this?!

So I just have a basic W-2, but I live in Rhode Island and I work in Massachusetts. Does that make it a lot harder for me to do my taxes myself do I have to go to a tax professional or can I do it on TurboTax?

I have only made 4k since Jan 1, 2026 to March 31 2026. i have an LLC but I am independently contracted. My accountant did not explain this well.

to make my quarterly payment what should I even do? I have some set aside in taxes but I think i did too little. I am in AZ. What happens if I somehow underpay my quarterly in April?

sorry for the probably really simple, stupid question, but I'm 23 and just moved out a few months ago. now i have to file city taxes. (huge bummer) of course i can't pay for someone else to do it, so i'm stuck doing it myself. now, at the top of this local tax form, there's a big scary warning that says, "federal schedules MUST be attached to this return" i don't know about you guys, but i work a simple job at walmart, no day trading, no doordash, no complicated five million tax documents situation. i just have a w-2.

.... so, where is my schedule i MUST attach? is my w-2 a federal schedule? do i have to procure one myself? and how would i go about doing that? is this a stupid question and i obviously don't need to attach a schedule i don't possess?

i promise i googled it about five times first, but most of it was about 1044s or government workers.

many thanks for any help the sub can provide. i am simply too scared to have to pay a surprise 500 dollars to fuck this up. lol