Help! Where's @Joe Riley ? I seriously need to drop by Joe's coffee shop for coffee and pie. Joe, any ShooFly today? This is my first post in the Personal Diaries section.... wish it could have been a fun one, but I'm doing taxes this morning and... gee. I've done our taxes every single year since 1979 and haven't had any big issues. But today... man, why must they make it harder each year?! Today I faced my first ever "enter half of line.... blah blah" and everything started going downhill. I'm currently taking a mental health break from it because I hit a place where I'm at negative $11,000. NEGATIVE! The IRS is going to be the death of me yet. I mean, we always have to pay in, but never anything near THAT amount! Why can't they just send us all a tax bill... we all pay the same according to income and be done with it. I guess that would be much too easy. Oh, by the way, I have chosen to go back to the hand-done paper version this year. I've done it online with Block for a number of years now and it's way too much of a stress. I'm not stressed with the paper version... or wasn't until that "-$11,000" hit me in the face. Now I have to start again and see where it messed me up. Probably some silly credit I'm supposed to be taking and didn't find yet. Joeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, help!
Wife done it online for the first time, thru some website (not Block), in January and we got our refund last month. However, she did have a problem and her online thing was rejected twice. I asked her "are they telling you why it was rejected?" and she said "no". Well, after the second rejection, I told her I'd check it out, so she gave me her password. After entering her password, the next page said, in a little fine print, that something was entered that didn't match IRS records. I checked it our and, believe it or not, she enter her date of birth in my DOB area as well as hers. I changed it and it wasn't rejected. The online thing cost us $50 to do, but that was ok with us. Actually, our last two tax years (2013, 2014), wife filled out tax forms wrong somewhere and we got a refund back........Yahoo!
Those are the types of things that turned me against online filing, @Cody Fousnaugh , yes. I'm glad you guys got it straightened out. About three years ago, I tried an experiment. I filled out the "paperwork" with two different online tax services... same information *exactly* and they came out with vastly different bottom lines. It was... surprising to say the least. When my local post offices stopped carrying the forms like they had for decades, I assumed that it was an attempt to get everyone switched over to online filing. So this year I called the local Block office to ask if I can still get them anywhere and they said "Oh, you can download all that from irs.gov." hehe Sure enough! I did, and it was a huge load taken off. My online filing was always with H&R Block free file. Last year I finally gave into letting them do my state filing, too, and they charged $9.95 for that, but worth it. I printed local and state forms this year, too, so all three will be free.
Libraries carry tax forms in many places I think. If you were a little older (65) Mari, and lived in these parts (Texas) .. you could go to the Public Library and get it all taken care of at no cost. They carry all the forms and instructions, plus one better, show up when the AARP reps are there a couple times a week, and they do all the paperwork for you and turn it in.. it's a free service. They give you a copy and you're on your way. We don't have state taxes to mess with in Texas .. same with Florida.
No state taxes... that sounds nice, @Bonnie Thomas ! It's really totally silly! Mine always come out even... never a refund on states, never a payment. Just a few years I owed a couple of dollars, but that's it. So basically useless and a waste of my time... and theirs.