Just filed, getting a small refund back (around 5k), which is nice, last year I owed a lot and that was unpleasant.
how was your experience? filed yet?
How did you guys do in 2011 taxes?
By permanent_marker Follow Mon, 16 Apr 2012, 2:26pm 4,116 views 40 comments
In Mountain View CA 94041
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Monterey, CA
Owe State of California $500.
I've already given them several grand this year, plus about 10% sales tax on purchases as well.
First year I've ever owed.
$500 isn't a lot of money, but damn, I'm tired of this state nickel and diming me around every corner. Not to mention $4.24/gal gas.
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Owed an additional $50,000. Hopefully that money will go to someone scamming the welfare system or to blow up some people over oil. I'm here to help!
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Sunnyvale, CA
permanent_marker says
You mean "a little careless," not "nice."
If your tax payments were uniform throughout the year (like W4 withholding on a salary with regular payments) you gave up $56 in income by doing that instead of making adjustments along the way (Provident CU has a 2.26% APY on the first $25K in their Super Rewards Checking provided you jump through the hoops including an ACH deposit and 10 debit transactions, and don't object to married couples having a pair of such accounts).
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Monterey, CA
nw888 says
Lol !
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How many people deducted only ad valorem property taxes on their CA state filings? That's right, no Mello Roos or parcels taxes for you! How many people had no clue? I have to admit, I missed that one. Luckily, the state appears to be backtracking. Yikes.
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Santa Cruz, CA
I have my stuff together but I have to write them checks so I will wait until tomorow to do the chore.
Using taxcut it's not too difficult.
It's annoying that regular mutual funds I bought so long ago are now getting big enough that they are producing some 1099s that are starting to hurt.
Someday it looks like I'll have to go out and get a square job just to pay my taxes on money I saved and invested decades ago.
I wish Vanguard had the "tax efficient" funds back then, but I also got into some international stuff which was not available as an index then either.
God I really hate them sucking my blood year after year. Everyone I see here is getting free something from Uncle Sam. My friend who has a business using craigslist and ebay gets the earned income credit for his slacker adult children, the mortgage interest deduction. His granny unit tenant has sec 8 and gets food stamps. The illegals I know file using an ITIN so they get the earned income credit, free money. A couple ladies I know got SSI for life because they were "depressed" or "bipolar" etc. Give me a break. One of them is over 50 she she gets housing also, she has an: iPhone, iPad, Two Rokus, Two flat screens, a nice little Toyota, free wifi in her apartment. Her standard of living in Capitola is better than 90% of people I know and she's on the dole.
Oh but those nasty "millionaires and billionaires" are really sucking us dry. Right.
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47 male
Lafayette, CA
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Tomorrow I get to mail a 6-figure check to the IRS. I'm not thrilled.
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iwog says
I thought you guys didn't win the lottery.
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46 male
Menlo Park, CA
Holy cow. Is that 6-figure check because you minimize withholding? It's definitely the best thing to do financially, but painful psychologically.
In my own case, I should get about $1.6K back, but that's only because my income has been so low as I bumble around trying to figure out a viable business model for Patrick.net.
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Boca Raton, FL
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It's not how much you have to pay or get back in April. It's your total tax bill that matters. The payment or refund at the end of the year isn't what's important as it's an arbitrary figure.
The important thing is to not get hit with penalties for underpayment. I try to shoot for $0 owed/refund as I don't like giving the government an interest free loan -- that's the government's job to the banks!
That said, although I usually get close to the zero point, this year I owed six and a half thousand because I had converted a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA and I had quite a bit of long-term capital gains after selling off my S&P500 Index stock.
Still, it's important to realize that your not "winning" by getting a refund or "losing" by making a payment. The goal is to minimize your total tax bill, or more precisely, to maximize your after-tax return.
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Pleasanton, CA
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iwog says
You could decrease the rents you charge and that'll decrease your tax bill. :) Also, a large percentage of that check is going towards keeping your real-estate holdings afloat, so not all is lost.
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Davis, CA
I got a refund a littler larger than Patrick.
I checked off the box to contribute $3 to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund.
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I'll be mailing a check. All my life wanted to put something clever in the memo field there, but never did.
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Denver, CO
FortWayne says
How about "hookers and blow" ?
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47 male
Lafayette, CA
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Patrick says
No, I pay my quarterlies. This year it was courtesy of my gold and silver stockpile.
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Corning, NY
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How'd I do? I discovered yet another reason to use index funds rather than individual stocks. Talk about pain-in-the-ass paperwork.
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Over here in Japan our companies do our taxes for us (and banks automatically withhold 10% of any interest paid on your savings and send it to the government), so the only thing I had to do was go to city hall after the filing date and make an adjustment for one deduction that I can claim. A small refund should be deposited in my bank account in a month.
I still had to file US taxes, though, with my entire income on Form 2555 as non-US income, so with the IRS I neither received nor owed a penny.
I wonder if expats are counted among the filers who "owe no US taxes". They really shouldn't be -- in most other countries, they wouldn't even have to file!
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Vicente says
My state form got a small return. Whenever we get a return, I check the box for a donation to the Voluntary Surrender Child Fund, again this year.
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I miscalculated my interest deduction when I refinanced and wound up owing about $10k. When all was said and done my total federal bill for 2011 was about $90k.
Of course, if not for AMT I would have actually gotten a refund. Thanks a lot, poorly written tax legislation.
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Boca Raton, FL
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iwog says
Did you sell it all off? I thought you only get taxed on gold and silver when you sell it for profit, not when you hold it.
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Davis, CA
B.A.C.A.H. says
I don't recall seeing that on California return but maybe I wasn't paying attention. What state are you in?
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47 male
Lafayette, CA
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Dan8267 says
I sold 2/3rds last year.
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Danville, CA
We had to pay a little over $5k... better than it could have been... I hate the IRS!
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Emeryville, CA
I got a pretty big refund on the way, but due to the default and the Missus not working, I put nearly every penny into taxes for the last quarter to adjust my withholding.
Too many factors to calculate perfectly and I didn't want to owe and pay a penalty. I suspected the wife's former company had mistakenly withheld too little too.
So, I'll be Iwog rich soon. :)
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iwog says
Were there any tax penalties. How did you do? If I underpay my taxes IRS comes down on me. Did that one year, was no fun.
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47 male
Lafayette, CA
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FortWayne says
There's a safe harbor for windfalls I think. Dunno, I generally just let them figure out the penalty and pay it.
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Corning, NY
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Vicente says
So part of your refund might have been a kickback. ;)
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72,000 in Federal taxes and 22,000 in state taxes. Find it difficult to believe that I paid 94,000 just in income taxes last year (not to mention 10,0000 in property tax, sales tax, and other such crap).
Makes me wonder why I still drive an 8 year old Honda Civic. With this kind of money I should be living in lap of luxury, but I guess this is the new economy.
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Vicente says
"...Assembly Bill 1983 (Chapter 587, 2010) has now provided for an outreach funding source through a voluntary contribution to fund SSB outreach on your state income tax form...."
- from http://www.babysafe.ca.gov/res/pdf/SSBFactSheet.pdf
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Pleasanton, CA
Too much. After all, need to pay those CA taxes so CA can continue to purchase the best welfare cheats and prisoners in the country, great investment, CA! Who needs to adopt those third world babies when I am already the daddy of every illegitimate child in CA.
What's with all the taxes you guys are paying, you must be the "one percent"??
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San Jose, CA
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Don't know. I filed for an extension yesterday. :)
Wife filed and got $4.6k back. Not enough to pay for property tax, but we don't owe much on the house.
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Wheeling, WV
iwog says
2 years ago I had to pay a penalty; it was no fun, but at least it wasn't very large - since the penalties are based on FED interest rates, right now they are fairly small.
I got a decent refund this year; last year I bought an house and significantly reduced my withholding, but apparently not far enough - time to go back to the drawing board.
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Santa Cruz, CA
I was going to mail my stuff and I got texts asking for favors from Maricela who is the illegal soon to be welfare mother/parasite.
Somehow I could not stand it so I didn't reply to any of them.
Next year maybe I should just go over to her sec.8 apartment and hand the cash to her directly, thereby cutting out the middleman.
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Santa Cruz, CA
Which gave me an idea: adopt an illegal. All those who think they help the economy, adopt one. You become responsible for their medical expenses and education and incarceration for drunk driving and gangbanging.
Every one would get a letter from you and meet the "liberal bleeding heart" who supports him.
You of course would get updates on your illegal's "progress" online. This would be helpful, showing his new identities depending on his new job and documents.
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47 male
Lafayette, CA
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clambo says
Make sure you send a check to the illegals picking your food and saving you thousands of dollars every year.
Must be an interesting world where everything has but a single side.
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Alameda, CA
permanent_marker says
Not as good as last year. Owed a small amount (less than $100 combined state and federal). We got a few hundred back last year.
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I was sad to get money back this year. its the first time in 8 years that I'm getting money back.. which means I didn't make much capital gains.
you guys should not feel sad to have to write a check at tax time. it mean that:
1. you made a bunch of low tax rate $.
2. you did not loan money to the government interest free.
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Broke even or owed a little bit like i always do... If you are getting a big refund you are giving Uncle Sam an interest free loan.
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33 male
Fort Mill, SC
Usually end up owing less than $1000, so I make a traditional IRA contribution reducing my income enough to make them send me a check for $1.
And holy cow, some of you guys pay a lot of taxes. Some big incomes on here....
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Tax time is sort of like true-up your entire year finance. A refund or payable is a function of timing. From the perspective, once tax is settled, it is more apprpriate to ask yourself: what is your balance sheet or net worth now vs. 1 year ago?
In general, paying tax (at filing time) is generally a good thing as that almost always means net worth is way up, usually a function of capital gains. But tax, which is usually one of the largest expense, can easily be avoided with a little bit of understanding and planning.
There were several years in the past that sending tax payments to Federal and CA did not make so much sense. Therefore, all my active trading accounts are in an retirement IRA, education IRA and even with IRA of mom and dad in another country. Building wealth with tax free gain is a lot better than have the fed and CA take a 40% bite every time. Too much to overcome.
The rest is in a 401K which are almost all REIT index which I love as the fed and CA takes nothing from the entity and the shareholder as well. If you contribute to a 401K, there's also the benefit of excluding around 33K (2 people)in income subject to tax which helps the tax settlement, which is by far the most lucrative deduction for highly paid workers. It is even better for entreprenuers as the self employed pre-tax is 50K.
It's great not to worry about tax consequences in an environment that requires quick techincal movements, not buy and hold strategies. All the buy and hold stuff stays in the non IRA accounts.
So here's my tax strategies in general:
* Pre-tax everything: (401K, education IRA, IRA, Care/Health/commute)This lowers your tax bill from your earned income
*Trade in tax deferred accounts (no current tax consequence no matter what you gain.
*REIT or REIT index in 401K. (government can't touch the cash flow generated at all)
*Buy and hold in non-trading account and use timing strategies and take advantage of long term and preferential treatment) Does not help in California. If it is company stock options, than a little planning may be prudent as timing the exit and elections will be important.