Wednesday, February 12, 2020

The Tax Man Cometh

For the past several years I have taken care of  filing our taxes.  With e-filing and the increase in the amount for a standardized deduction, they have gotten a lot easier to complete.  Cal's were the most challenging this year as he had online income, extra taxes due to his housing situation at Miso and the closure of his Ameritrade account.  It took me an extra week to figure his, but he didn't mind as in the end he received the most money back out of all of us.  Meg and Brett were happy with their returns as well.  It was the first time that Meg had had to file and she didn't realize how much she would be getting as a refund.  This was also the first year that Brett could claim himself on his taxes as he had paid for all of his own expenses since April.  That allowed him to claim the education credit from his graduate tuition costs giving him an extra $300 in his return.

As glad as Brett, Cal and Meg were to find out the amount that they would be getting back, no one was happier than Doug.  Three years ago we were completely blindsided and took a big hit in what we owed.  Thanks to changes in the tax laws during the Trump administration, the last two years were a lot better for us.  Last year we owed money, but considerably less than 2017.  This year we actually netted a refund between the state and the federal returns.  We couldn't believe it and went through everything several times before we pushed e-file.  With all of the money that we had spent these past few years on IU and Bethany tuition, it was such a relief to find out that the tax man would not be collecting from us this year.  

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