North Carolina Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Raleigh Tax Prep
Hey Ladies,
Does anyone have any recommendations for tax preperation in the triangle. DH paid $70 last year in WV because he had a friend at a small accounting firm do it. We have an appointment at H&R block, but I've heard their basic rate starts at $200 and they charge per W2 (we have 5). We can't afford that. I had no idea tax preparation was that expensive and I know we will owe this year.
Turbo tax is $70 bucks for state and federal and I hate to pay that much and do it wrong.
Warning
No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
Re: Raleigh Tax Prep
This is what I've used in the past--its free. I used taxact for the last 4 or 5 years.
http://www.taxact.com/
This year, we did it for free with my job--a special service they offered to employees.
http://www.amazon.com/TurboTax-Deluxe-Federal-State-DOWNLOAD/dp/B002VPE3FK/ref=pd_cp_sw_1
You can download for $43.57 off Amazon, this is the one we've always used, I think I remember you saying your DH has business expenses to deduct? But it's not from his own business, it's for doing work for another company? I'm pretty sure this software covers that, but I'm sure the fine print would tell you.
My coworker also found the TurboTax discussion boards very helpful. She is new to the country and therefore completely new to taxes and our system. She said that there were some great explanations on there and she even posted a few questions and was surprised how quickly she got responses.
DH has all this work mileage and I don't know how to put it in. His numbers he has recorded aren't making sense (he had 2 cars last year). I don't know if we are going to get in trouble if the numbers aren't exact. As it is we owe almost $800.
Like Terp was saying, you are only going to get in trouble if you get audited and don't have the proper paperwork. I would definitely put in the mileage you are comfortable with and conservatively estimate the mileage you are more iffy on. GL!
So I've never had a company car, so I'm clueless in this area. But is the personal mileage on the company car a tax deduction? Or is just the work mileage deductable? If it is just the work mileage, then I'm not sure you would need the exact number for the personal mileage.
If you do end up needing the personal mileage, I would either follow Terp's very smart advice and not deduct the personal mileage. Or try to see if you could come up with an estimate using the beginning mileage when he got the car (either known or estimate) and subtract the work mileage. The difference would be a rough guess of the personal mileage. If this makes a significant difference on your return I would probably take about 60% of that number to make it a bit more of a conservative estimate since you don't have the correct documentation and use that.
Honestly whether you go to an accountant or use TurboTax, you are going to run into the same problem with the mileage. A CPA isn't going to be better able to know the mileage than you.
"If you use your car in your job or business and you use it only for that purpose, you may deduct its entire cost of operation (subject to limits discussed later). However, if you use the car for both business and personal purposes, you may deduct only the cost of its business use."
From this link, which seems like it has some helpful information on it:
http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc510.html
I'm guessing if you don't have mileage records that indicate when the car is being used for work vs. personal you are going to be SOL (shitouttaluck).