Tax Season!

[mac5155]

Yeah but did you itemize your deductions or did you take the standard deduction? If all your deductions are less than the standard deduction then charitable donations dont matter. If you itemized your deductions and got more than the standard deduction, or you can get more than the standard deduction when you add in your $1200 in charitable donations, then yes it makes sense to file an amended return.

I am pretty sure that's right.

[PensFanInDC]

See, this is why I have a CPA.

I sent him an email about this last night but he hasn't had time to respond yet so I thought I'd toss it out here. I pay no attention to my taxes. I just send him all of my stuff and he does it all for me. I trust the guy with my life so I don't have a need to check his work. I'll just wait for him.

I would assume we itemized because I did have several large donations to Salvation Army that we claimed totaling over $5,000. We also have a child, a mortgage, etc.

[skullman80]

Yeah but did you itemize your deductions or did you take the standard deduction? If all your deductions are less than the standard deduction then charitable donations dont matter. If you itemized your deductions and got more than the standard deduction, or you can get more than the standard deduction when you add in your $1200 in charitable donations, then yes it makes sense to file an amended return.

I am pretty sure that's right.

That sounds right. It's like my wife always says when she donates to charities oh I can write this off. I'm like the couple hundred bucks you put in donations ain't gonna move the needle If I itemize our deductions. I mean she donates for the right reasons but she always gets sad when I tell her that haha.

[mac5155]

See, this is why I have a CPA.

I sent him an email about this last night but he hasn't had time to respond yet so I thought I'd toss it out here. I pay no attention to my taxes. I just send him all of my stuff and he does it all for me. I trust the guy with my life so I don't have a need to check his work. I'll just wait for him.

I would assume we itemized because I did have several large donations to Salvation Army that we claimed totaling over $5,000. We also have a child, a mortgage, etc.

Married filing jointly you will need over $12,400 worth of deductions to make it worth itemizing vs. taking the standard deduction. So if you have more than $12,400 in deductions (charity, mortgage interest, etc) then file the amended return.

[skullman80]

See, this is why I have a CPA.

I sent him an email about this last night but he hasn't had time to respond yet so I thought I'd toss it out here. I pay no attention to my taxes. I just send him all of my stuff and he does it all for me. I trust the guy with my life so I don't have a need to check his work. I'll just wait for him.

I would assume we itemized because I did have several large donations to Salvation Army that we claimed totaling over $5,000. We also have a child, a mortgage, etc.

Standard deduction this year is 6200$ if you are filing single, and 12,400$ if you are filing jointly married. Not sure how the kid fits into all of that.

[PensFanInDC]

Pfffft. Our mortgage interest was more than $12,400 alone since I paid 15 months of mortgage in 2014.

[mac5155]

What's your payment, $4,000 a month? that you're paying $1k a month in interest?

[skullman80]

Pfffft. Our mortgage interest was more than $12,400 alone since I paid 15 months of mortgage in 2014.

That is insane.

[PensFanInDC]

It's high but not that high. It's interest heavy at the beginning so I pay roughly $1,000 a month in interest right now.

[PensFanInDC]

Pfffft. Our mortgage interest was more than $12,400 alone since I paid 15 months of mortgage in 2014.

That is insane.

Yes it is. There are many reasons that I am selling!

[mac5155]

I thought my student loans were bad. Did you buy your house with a discover card?

[ulf]

Plus real estate taxes and your state taxes you paid during the year. If you own a home, more than likely, you'll itemize

[PensFanInDC]

I thought my student loans were bad. Did you buy your house with a discover card?

.....diners club

[skullman80]

Plus real estate taxes and your state taxes you paid during the year. If you own a home, more than likely, you'll itemize

True. We only don't because our house was pretty cheap, and our interest rate low.. so even factoring in the interest we pay on the house plus real estate taxes we still don't come near the 12,400 number even factoring in student loan interest etc.

[mac5155]

Student loan interest is different, it's not part of the standard/itemized deduction, IIRC

[skullman80]

It probably is. Either way we were no where near the minimum to itemize. The only thing that upset me is the cap of 2500$ for student loan interest. My wife had almost 4k in student loan interest herself(yay masters degree ).. and I had another 600 or so for me, but could only do 2500$. Oh well. Still got a pretty nice chunk back, which went to pay off a credit card that we used to put new windows in the house last year on a 12 month no interest setup.. that's probably gonna have a big chunk put back on once we decide if we are putting a deck on the house or new siding. It's a vicious cycle that never ends haha.

[mac5155]

Yeah, it's $2500 regardless of married or single... and it's not valid for married filing separately. IMO that is one way they can "make education more affordable" to those who didn't get the lucrative interest rates of 3.4% or whatever it was. Between my wife and I, we paid almost $9k in interest.

[dodint]

The other infuriating thing for me has been that medical expenses don't kick in until after 7.5% of your AGI. That is conveniently below our out of pocket insurance cap so we can max out the cap and then are unable to claim anything. The year we maxed her cap out for two years in two months was the year I doubled my income for just that year, so I couldn't claim that either.

[mac5155]

Sounds like you need to figure out a way to modify your AGI a little more.

[dodint]

I hope to not max the cap this year.

[King Sid the Great 87]

What's your payment, $4,000 a month? that you're paying $1k a month in interest?

If 75% of his $4K/month payment is going to principle, he'd be doing back flips because there would only be a few years left.

[mac5155]

Well yeah, but if you're still paying $1,000 of interest in the last few years of your loan, wouldn't the first 10 have been straight interest? Not that it matters. My math is off, obviously

[dodint]

I made my first mortgage payment on Feb 1 and 30% of it went to principle. We have some high taxes here though.

[PensFanInDC]

Most of our mortgage payment is interest at this point. The loan was for roughly 207k three years ago. Today we owe roughly 200k in principle. Yep...3 years of mortgage payments and I have only gained about 7K principle equity.

[skullman80]

I pay more on my car payment then we pay on our mortgage.