$260K HHI. 2 Kids. Accountant or freebie software?
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Anonymous
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Hi all. We have 260K HHI. I think we are a pretty simple profile when it comes to taxes:
-- 28K on daycare -- 2 kids under 3 -- Renters -- Make too much for student loan interest write-off -- No major 501c3 contributions (<$500) I ran our numbers in the FreeTaxUSA platform and am getting about $3195 deduction. When I had previously just ran our numbers in a TurboTax estimator I got about 4K in return. Should we do an accountant? Would we get much more? |
Anonymous
| Tax software. There's no need to pay an accountant for this. |
Anonymous
| Bigger question is why are you renting? You are missing out on a huge mortgage interest deduction. |
Anonymous
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tax software for sure
We have similar stats, but we have W2, 1099s, and K1s. We can still TurboTax and dont need an accountant |
Anonymous
| Does this return amount seem about right based on what I put in? I just want to make sure I'm not missing some moola! |
Anonymous
There's not enough information to answer this. I'm actually surprised you don't owe. |
Anonymous
Really? Why? In total on 260K HHI we paid 40K ish in fed taxes |
Anonymous
Just use TurboTax. It walks you through your taxes. It will ask a lot of questions to find out if there is any way you can get more back. I've used it for 20+ years. It has been through 2 primary houses, a secondary house, birth of twins, 6 years of daycare/preschool, high medical costs, an investment in a side business (schedule K1), a stock portfolio, separate pre-marital holdings and a lot more. And to give you a ballpark, in 2018, we have a combined HHI of $280K and we paid about $44K in taxes. But we itemize instead of the standard deduction (we are over the $24K standard deduction in part due to the two mortgages). So, you are in the right general ballpark, but the only way to know for certain is to do your taxes. Turbotax will handle your situation very easily and it should take you about 30-60 minutes if you have all of your tax documentation available when you sit down. If not, it will take however long it takes to find the documents when TT asks you questions. |
Anonymous
We are around the same income and in a similar situation. Your total tax liability should be around $40K +/- 2k if 260K is your true HHI. If you made contributions to retirement accounts then you need to adjust your HHI for that and your taxes will be lower. An accountant can't find any additional deductions for you. |
Anonymous
| 2 kids, free of course. Now if you're special and have 4 kids, paid. |
Anonymous
OP never said what his tax withholding was so its impossible to know which side of 40ishK he will fall on. |
Anonymous
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We have rental income and use Turbo Tax Premier. There's zero reason for you to have an accountant. It's just plug and play.
I'd go with Turbo Tax, as they have solid customer service and have really been on top of the recent tax law changes. They've been tweaking their system into this month. Yes, they cost a bit more than the competition. But it seems like your larger return will make up the difference. |
Anonymous
| Turbo tax all the way |
Anonymous
| We do turbo tax and pay for audit defense. So useful. We are getting audited for 2016, something about Ira conversations. SO far it's all been free for us to deal with the irs on this. |
Anonymous
What do you mean by "return"? Do you mean refund? What did you mean by deduction in your OP? It amazes me that there is so little financial literacy on this board. Bearing that you don't seem to understand the terms perhaps you do need an accountant. |