mrlab
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Posts: 15
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Post by mrlab on Jul 28, 2015 13:02:16 GMT -5
The irs called me that I didn't file tax for 2013. I made about $17,500. So how much do you think I am going to own?
With the deductible will the fee go down? Please help.
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Post by ac on Jul 28, 2015 15:29:16 GMT -5
There are a lot of different factors that could affect it. Are you single or married? Do you have kids that you provided for? IS that $17,500 all from studies? I'll assume you are single with no kids. I'll assume your Adjusted gross income(AGI) is $17,500. If you had kept track of expenses and kept receipts then you could've reduced your taxable income. The personal exemption and standard deduction for a single person in 2013 was $10,000. So $7500 is taxable income. That is taxed at 10% so you owe $750 in Federal tax. They may make you pay FICA tax as well. That is about 15% of your total gross income of $17500. That's $2625 for FICA and $750 for Federal for a total of $3375. I'm not sure how it works exactly but you may only have to pay half of the FICA. Chances are that your state will come after you for unpaid taxes as well unless you live in a state that doesn't have income tax. You will likely also get a fine for not filing and interest on what you should've paid. Did you also not pay taxes in 2014?
You're looking at a minimum of $750 and possibly over $3K.
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mrlab
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Posts: 15
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Post by mrlab on Jul 28, 2015 18:44:19 GMT -5
Thanks for your quick response. Yes I am single and no kids. I only did study that year and worked in two places I made about $300. I live in Texas and I don't think you need to file taxes. So I am looking at about $3000??? wow. Yes I did file for 2014.
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Post by ac on Jul 28, 2015 19:03:32 GMT -5
Thanks for your quick response. Yes I am single and no kids. I only did study that year and worked in two places I made about $300. I live in Texas and I don't think you need to file taxes. So I am looking at about $3000??? wow. Yes I did file for 2014. What do you mean you made $300? I thought you made $17500? Did you have income other than study income? That would make a difference since that money from a "normal" job would have taxes taken out so then you wouldn't owe nearly as much. You are right, Texas doesn't have state income tax.
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mrlab
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Posts: 15
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Post by mrlab on Jul 28, 2015 19:33:19 GMT -5
I meant my other job I had, I made about $300, plus $17500 I made from doing study that year.
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Post by vark on Jul 28, 2015 20:10:37 GMT -5
step 1: rough it out with a free online tax prep program like taxact, taxhawk, turbotax etc. print that out and take it to a tax preparer, whether your neighborhood accountant, H+R block, or whoever. expect to pay around $200 for that. the $200 is a deductible expense. or there are places that do it for free.
your gross from studies was 17,500. but you only owe tax on your net, not your gross. the difference is expenses.
there are two kinds of expenses, actual and imputed. you get to deduct both. for example, the imputed expense per mile that you drive to and from studies (including screenings) is around 50 cents a mile, even though my actual expense is about 25 cents per mile. (gas, oil changes, repairs etc.) another imputed expense is around $50 a day for meals etc when traveling out of town for work. have your preparer explain the details.
(so if you drove 35,000 miles for studies that would cancel the 17,500. unlikely, but i'm making a point.)
but your hotel expenses you only deduct the actual amount you paid.
try to come up with, say, $7500 in legitimate expense deductions. that would bring your actual income to 10,000 (plus that other $300 i'm ignoring for now). you would owe zero federal income tax because of the standard deduction which is around $11000 these days. plus a $25% penalty for late filing, still zero. But, you'd also owe i think it's around 13%? self-employment tax aka fica. ask your tax preparer for the form to ask to get the penalty waived on that. so you might owe $1300 + 200 in prep fees say $1500, unless you were able to expense the whole 17800.
your next step would be to ask your tax preparer how to negotiate that with the irs so they'll take less. this is where an accountant might be better than h+r block. they can at least set up a payment plan if thats an issue.
ask your preparer if they think your situation best fits "self-employment income" or "other income". the advantage is you don't pay fica on other income. offhand it looks to me more like self-employment income but still ask.
disclaimer: i am not an accountant. i'm not your accountant. i am talking about a big ballpark picture; i dont claim to know your details. however, i'm a guy who makes around 17,500 from studies and $300 from scrapping, so this is soing i've thought about. again, rough it out yourself, claiming every legitimate expense, then take that to a professional.
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mike
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Posts: 334
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Post by mike on Jul 28, 2015 21:39:38 GMT -5
I blew off doing my taxes a couple years ago, the IRS eventually sent me a letter nagging me about it. So I went and did the taxes, I don't remember whether I just did it by hand or with a program. My income was similar: roughly $17,000 from doing studies, I did what I always do, which is claim expenses to get my tax liability down to nothing or close to it, and I paid no fees or interest. With income this low, the IRS themselves are not expecting to get some huge pound of flesh out of you, they just want things complete and proper like; when you don't do your taxes a little red light pops up at IRS headquarters and stays on until you file.
By the way, when I say that I get my liability down to nothing, I'm not saying I do anything wrong, I am following the rules and what I do is legal and reasonable.
To be honest, if you make around 17 grand in a year doing studies ( which DOES have high expenses associated with it ), the IRS should not expect ( and I don't think they do ) for you to have any significant tax responsibilities. I think even $1500 is way more than someone in this position should have to pay.
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Post by ac on Jul 29, 2015 8:49:29 GMT -5
I blew off doing my taxes a couple years ago, the IRS eventually sent me a letter nagging me about it. So I went and did the taxes, I don't remember whether I just did it by hand or with a program. My income was similar: roughly $17,000 from doing studies, I did what I always do, which is claim expenses to get my tax liability down to nothing or close to it, and I paid no fees or interest. With income this low, the IRS themselves are not expecting to get some huge pound of flesh out of you, they just want things complete and proper like; when you don't do your taxes a little red light pops up at IRS headquarters and stays on until you file. By the way, when I say that I get my liability down to nothing, I'm not saying I do anything wrong, I am following the rules and what I do is legal and reasonable. To be honest, if you make around 17 grand in a year doing studies ( which DOES have high expenses associated with it ), the IRS should not expect ( and I don't think they do ) for you to have any significant tax responsibilities. I think even $1500 is way more than someone in this position should have to pay. Last year I earned $29600 gross and came up with enough deductions to get my AGI down to just over $20000. I had to pay around $4500 in FICA, Federal and State income taxes. I don't see any legal way you could pay nothing on $17000 of income. Even if you get your AGI down to $10000 or less that would only get you out of paying income tax. You would still owe FICA tax.
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mrlab
New Member
Posts: 15
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Post by mrlab on Jul 29, 2015 12:13:04 GMT -5
Thanks to you both. The irs is going to send me the 1099 because I don't have it anymore. I am planning to file it by myself, so if you can kindly tell me what tools I need in other to do this. How do I even pull out a 2013 file.
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mike
Moderator
Posts: 334
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Post by mike on Jul 31, 2015 17:13:12 GMT -5
I blew off doing my taxes a couple years ago, the IRS eventually sent me a letter nagging me about it. So I went and did the taxes, I don't remember whether I just did it by hand or with a program. My income was similar: roughly $17,000 from doing studies, I did what I always do, which is claim expenses to get my tax liability down to nothing or close to it, and I paid no fees or interest. With income this low, the IRS themselves are not expecting to get some huge pound of flesh out of you, they just want things complete and proper like; when you don't do your taxes a little red light pops up at IRS headquarters and stays on until you file. By the way, when I say that I get my liability down to nothing, I'm not saying I do anything wrong, I am following the rules and what I do is legal and reasonable. To be honest, if you make around 17 grand in a year doing studies ( which DOES have high expenses associated with it ), the IRS should not expect ( and I don't think they do ) for you to have any significant tax responsibilities. I think even $1500 is way more than someone in this position should have to pay. Last year I earned $29600 gross and came up with enough deductions to get my AGI down to just over $20000. I had to pay around $4500 in FICA, Federal and State income taxes. I don't see any legal way you could pay nothing on $17000 of income. Even if you get your AGI down to $10000 or less that would only get you out of paying income tax. You would still owe FICA tax. From your reponse it sounds like you don't file as self-employed as I don't think you need to worry about FICA when you do this. If you go self-employed I think that you might have more ability to claim expenses. The biggest one is with the vehicle: it's pretty easy to rack up several thousand miles in a year doing studies; at 55 cents a mile this can really add up.
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Post by ac on Jul 31, 2015 18:00:51 GMT -5
Last year I earned $29600 gross and came up with enough deductions to get my AGI down to just over $20000. I had to pay around $4500 in FICA, Federal and State income taxes. I don't see any legal way you could pay nothing on $17000 of income. Even if you get your AGI down to $10000 or less that would only get you out of paying income tax. You would still owe FICA tax. From your reponse it sounds like you don't file as self-employed as I don't think you need to worry about FICA when you do this. If you go self-employed I think that you might have more ability to claim expenses. The biggest one is with the vehicle: it's pretty easy to rack up several thousand miles in a year doing studies; at 55 cents a mile this can really add up. I do file as self employed. That's why I have to pay FICA. If studies are your main source of income then you are required to file as self employed. If they are a minority of your income then you can just put it under "other income" on your 1040 or 1040A form. If you are self employed, you are required to file Schedule SE. www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040sse.pdf
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Post by ac on Jul 31, 2015 18:07:39 GMT -5
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mike
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Post by mike on Aug 5, 2015 3:54:19 GMT -5
Look, I'm sure it's just a matter of semantics, I assume a good amount of the self-employed tax is routed to social security and medicare, but if you filed self employed you didn't pay FICA tax.
And I'm not going to go into any more detail than I already have about how I file my taxes other than to say it's pretty easy to get your tax burden down very low on $17,000 income from studies.
Both these sentences are basically me stating what I have already said... which I usually take as a sign that a thread is going downhill or at least going nowhere. But I'm sitting in a study and I'm a little bored, I guess.
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Post by lisalundy777 on Oct 2, 2015 8:19:51 GMT -5
The irs called me that I didn't file tax for 2013. I made about $17,500. So how much do you think I am going to own? With the deductible will the fee go down? Please help. . Hi I would like to find a group to travel with to do study's please email me so I can give you my phone number you can look me up on Facebook lundylisa12@gmail.com to email me my email is lisalundy777@gmail.com
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christina
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Location: Cleveland Ohio
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A little about me: Egar to try
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Post by christina on Nov 30, 2015 3:32:38 GMT -5
The irs called me that I didn't file tax for 2013. I made about $17,500. So how much do you think I am going to own? With the deductible will the fee go down? Please help. how do I get started
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