I hate fucking taxes. Just stayed on a call with Fidelity because I overpaid my 401k by a few dollars and they don’t know how to set a reimbursement. Now I’m on a call with Anthem because they don’t know why I never got my 1099-SA. Fuck. I really fucking hate taxes.
Of course they have to mail it to me. Now I gotta figure out how to calculate my own 1099 SA.
Just file for an extension, it’ll give you until October (?) to complete your taxes with the proper paperwork.
Few years ago, I estimated my pay/taxes because a former employer never mailed me my W2 since they just sucked. I’m foggy on all of the specifics, but I remember getting a letter saying they couldn’t verify the info from that W2, and that I wouldn’t get my refund until it was verified.
Got the company to send me my actual W2, filed a revised return, and ended up owning like $1700, even though it had told me before the letter I’d get a refund of like $3k. Annoying as fuck, but ultimately my fault, I should’ve just waited for the W2 and filed for an extension in the meantime.
Following year, I got a letter from the IRS saying they owed me $1300 that was never released due to my tax shenanigans the previous year.
Moral of the story: just file for the extension, save yourself the anxiety and headache.
He only knows because your employer ratted you out
Your employer doesn’t know all your sources of income if you have independent stuff going on.
If you have taxes witheld the will know. Only way to avoid that is through contract labor cash only
What? No. They only know the amount you asked them to withhold, and that could get you in trouble if you specify dependents then tell everyone you don’t have any or something. Also if someone is living in your house, making less than 4700 for the entire year, they can be claimed as a dependent, which means you don’t even have to have kids. How would your work even know?
I mean, that’s essentially what our taxes are. Things vary based on tax brackets, state, dependents/spouses, and total earnings of course, but we all have a base tax.
The hard part of taxes is usually deductions, or when you start having things like investments or small businesses.
They don’t actually know. If they think something looks suspicious, they do an audit, and then they know.
The vast majority of people’s taxes fillings are taken on good faith.
I got audited a few years back. I claimed something that set off a red flag–deducted tuition for a grad program as a business expense.
I freaked out at first because I thought I must have messed something up or that they knew I messed something up.
What I discovered is that: at the end of the day these folks are probably just as annoyed as you that they got another “audit” in their pile. And being flagged doesn’t mean you are wrong. It means they need more information before they can decide.
I wrote a detailed response with the actual flow chart from their own guidance, I circled the decisions on the chart, and then provided proof of each decision in my letter. Basically I held their hand and showed them I could legit deduct it.
They were like “oh, cool thanks! You’re good. Actually, you could have itemized x if you have receipts for it and you’d get a bigg r deduction if you wanted to amend”
That’s when I realized they don’t really check everyone’s taxes at all. They have a system that flags certain situations for further review. I guess, in my case, people lie or mess up this tuition deduction a lot so they double check.
They don’t actually know the final amount, but they do have an independent expectation for certain items.
If your job withholds income tax then it is paid quarterly to the government, so they know how much you made and how much taxes you should be paying.
If you win a large sum of money in the stock market or gambling at a casino then the broker or management company reports a tax bill to the IRS. The same happens for large early withdrawals of retirement funds.
They also know information based on previous returns, like how many kids you have or if you own a home.
They may not know it down to the dollar amount you’ll be paying because of the complexity of the US tax code and the deductions you’ll claim. For example, the government has no record of you purchasing a $600 electric car charger but you can claim that on your taxes to reduce your tax liability. That being said, if you under-report the amount you made at your job they will almost surely audit you if the number reported by your employer doesn’t match the number you provide.
In many countries, the government does have a record of you purchasing that electric car charger as long as you ask the seller to include your tax number in the receipt - which you need to do if you want to file it - and it all comes automatically pre-filled in my tax deductions. Its become really easy to do taxes, it’s literally 3 clicks for most people.
I enter in my w4 and take the standard deduction. Takes me 5 minutes.
Haven’t owed since I had a retail job that reset my withholding when I got promoted to make it look like I got a bigger raise.
Do you not earn interest on any accounts? No loans on which you pay interest? Are you a student?
Like I said: standard deduction. Those numbers never come close to make itemized deductions worth the time and effort.
Interest is income, so your W-2 won’t be enough to account for that. You’ll also need to go to any banks, taxable brokerage accounts, etc, because that money will impact your taxable income. Still not a ton of work, but it’s still more than just W-2 + standard deduction.
