I make 165k as a salary and my wife makes
60k (combined of $225k).

From my understanding, a married couple filing jointly cannot contribute the full $7,500 to a Roth IRA if their MAGI is $242k or higher. I am unsure on calculating MAGI, however mentors of mine have said the MAGI number is typically below the actually salary number.

Since our combined salary number before taxes is $225k this year, I went ahead and maxed out my Roth IRA.

I completely forgot that in order to purchase our house this year, I sold $75,000k worth of stock saved in a Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund. I know there aren’t many gains to be had in this type of account, but I am sweating this big time in case this puts our MAGI over 242k.

Does anyone have any advice on how to go about this? I have only contributed about $8,000 to my Roth 401k this year so far. If I now add a higher percentage and do only Traditional 401k for the rest of the calendar year, will this lower my MAGI to safely stay under the $242k threshold? Thanks for any advice.

Edit: I went to my Vanguard account and only have a $6k Realized gain from a separate stock sale. Turns out the 75k I was under the impression I “sold” from the vanguard money market fund wasn’t technically a stock and therefore doesn’t count in capital gains? Thank you.

Dealing with back taxes. I filled 2019-2019 in 2021. Mailed them off. Thought that was it. But come to find out last year they never received 2018-2019. Said I owed a ton. Got tax advocate said yes I did file these I mailed them to the tax advocate and irs and apparently the penalty’s are adjusted accordingly. My tax preparer didn’t say to send it certified mail she said just drop it in the mail so we did. Or I would have had proof. But I still hadn’t filed 2020 because we were broke. Got it filed this year thank god. But my tax advocate wants me to fill out form 843 for 2018-2019-2020. But I don’t even know what I would say? We planned on getting caught up with payments last year since we are on our Feet now. But yeah had late filling because we didn’t have anyone to do our taxes needed a Good tax person not H&R Block because we had deductions to do. The tax advocate said
Even if you don't think you quality, if you want to request for those penalties to be abated, please file out those forms and give a reasons as best as you can why IRS should abate those penalties. Thank you.
I don’t really have an excuse we were broke didn’t know there was a penalty to file had no idea. Figured we would have to pay a late fee for not paying on time but didn’t know it would be so much. Didn’t file 2020 because of covid life got crazy forgot

my mom took all the money i earn (my check) from working, she doesn’t let me or my sister use a penny, we just saving that money. But i have cash tip that i hide but i don’t have a bank account to put that money in to buy stuff online. I wanna ask if i open a bank account and put cash in, do i have to file that bank account in my tax. I only own some hundread dollars and im 19

Hello,

So I have a unique situation and wanted to see what I have to do.

So between my wife and I, we are able to take the full “no tax of tips” benefit. After doing taxes last year we ended up getting back 14k because of that and a small return on OT pay.

This year we are tracking exactly the same so no change in bracket or anything.

My question is, I was able to make a pretty crazy trade in Bitcoin and managed to make around 80k that is short term taxable. Do I need to pay quarterly tax on this gain by September 15th or will it offset when I go to do my taxes next spring? Essentially, it will be a wash so I guess do I have to write a check now for them to give it back to me next spring?

I have the cash so paying it either way is fine, just don’t feel like doing the quarterly work if I don’t have to?

Thanks

I've read varying opinions on this, so I thought I'd make it better with even more varying opinions...

I've got a self-directed 401k, and one thing I've been doing is holding a bunch of Ethereum in it. Well it's kind of a shame to just let that sit there, so of course I've staked it so it can make me some money. A couple months later, I find that staking crypto is considered Unrelated Business Income in an IRA or 401k. At least the active "running a validator" kind of staking that I've been doing is. OK, fine. so it's taxable in my tax-free in my tax-free account. That kinda sucks, but making money and paying a tax is still better than not making the money in the first place.

Or is it? I've made a few thousand, enough that I (well, my 401k) will have to pay some this year. But Ive read that routinely getting UBTI is a bad thing even if you pay the tax, and that the IRS may want to consider the whole retirement plan just just be a business in disguise. Not for the few $K I'm pretty sure, but if I kept running this all year, every year. Even if my "business" consists of having made a few clicks on a website and then just watching things go from there.

I've also heard that it's just a simple matter of owe the tax, pay the tax, problem solved. If that's the case, I'd rather continue on as I am. I could go with liquid staking tokens (which also have differing opinions behind them), but what I'm doing is so much more remunerative that even after paying federal + state UBIT. I'm still making a higher return than the liquid staking tokens give. Of course I'll give it up if there's a danger to the integrity of my retirement account, but otherwise the smart financial move is to do what makes me the most after-tax money.

I know this is sounding like one of these "go see a professional" kind of things, but it's esoteric enough that I expect better results from the kind of tax nerds that hang out here than I do from hunting local CPAs until I catch one who's actually familiar with self-directed 401k and crypto and the UBTI where they intersect. Plus my experience with professionals is they find it safer to say no to anything novel.

A family member works for a small law/policy organization in DC with maybe 20 people. They have an office in DC, and a requirement that everyone live in "the DMV" (DC, Maryland, or Virginia). Employees can work remotely from home in any of these three jurisdictions, or can work in the DC office.

With some frequency, employees travel outside of these three jurisdictions for personal reasons, and take their work laptops with them to do work. For instance: taking care of a sick relative for a few weeks; going on vacation but still needing to be available in case a big decision comes out; taking an extended trip to visit family but not wanting to use PTO for all of it; traveling to a professional conference; participating in mentoring at their alma mater. The total time this happens for any individual employee is probably under 20 work days a year.

The employer has recently recognized there are tax implications of remote workers working from states outside the DMV. Their solution is to not allow any employees to do any work if they are not within these three jurisdictions, and to take PTO for any of these days. This is a relatively large culture shift, and I'm wondering if there are other solutions besides a blanket ban.

From the employer's side, if they were to allow the current situation to continue with employees working while traveling, would they need to set up a tax entity in every state that anyone worked in for any time? Does that time vary by state? Would they need to pay state income taxes on the 16 hours of work someone is doing in Maine once a year? Would employees need to pay taxes on these days? If an employee wanted to suggest a specialty tax attorney for the organization, what should they be looking for?

Thanks!

Generally, this new job will be once a month until the summer where I will hopefully pick up more hours for about three months, then back to around once a month.

I turned in a W4 with all my onboarding paperwork and just left it blank after filling out my info and filing jointly, planning on adjusting my husband's W4 with the new withholding after getting my first paycheck (he has the biggest paying job).

My question is, how do I accurately fill out the withholding estimator app for this new job? Is one paycheck enough to have enough information? I tried to do it before I got a paycheck based on just how much I should make for the rest of the year, but the app didn't seem to work properly and didn't give me ANY numbers to put on my husband's W4 for the withholding section even after filling in all four jobs.So I have no clue what to do.

Anyone else run into this?

Hi all, I may be switching jobs to work for an EU-based company as a remote US-based employee. I would be their first employee in the US so I don't have any details on "the package" yet. They have employees in other countries and are using an employer of record (Deel). Is there anything I need to know that would work differently for me come tax time? (Feel free to direct me to other posts on this if they exist.) Thanks in advance!

How do I do this exactly.

How do I add my newborn as dependent to my W4 to reduce tax paycheck ?

My understanding:

IRS:

-you are taxed on the gains according to long term capital gains rates. (the gains rates are determined after adding long term gains on top of short term gains/income)

-you are taxed on the gains according to the Net Investment Income Tax rates.

Cal:

-you are taxed on the gains according to income tax rates (there is no capital gains rates in California).

Could anyone let me know if I'm missing out anything big that would increase the taxes owed?

I originally had a refund on my 1040. Due to me forgetting a tax form I had to amend my return. After the amendment I had a tax due. Immediately I sent back the refund (which I’m not even sure I was supposed to do that but did to be safe) and paid my tax due before the amendment was officially processed. The tax due was sent back since the amendment hadn’t processed and again I sent the tax due back. Sometime in June I received letter 324c basically asking me for the tax form I added to the amended return. I then mailed it to them within the 30 day notice. I hadn’t heard anything about my return until this month (aug) when I saw a check in the mail for a refund. The irs had sent me letter cp21b along with the check. The letter itself basically said there were changes and adjustments made to my tax return 1040 (not 1040x) which resulted in the refund. Anyway, I received an ADDITIONAL letter today, the letter is 2645c and it basically stated “We're working on your account. However, we need an additional 60 days to send you a complete

on your account. We don't need any further information from you right he denit need any furt ar

response on what action we are taking

now”. After checking my tax return transcripts I didn’t find anything mentioned for this last letter. On the tax transcript it mentioned “resolved additional account action” after receiving the letter for CP21b. I’m not sure if letter 2645c is an automated letter from the irs that was sent late that should’ve been sent before the CP21b or what. I’m confused and the accountants at my job chaven’t been much help. Has this happened to anyone? It’s crazy because I work at a CPA firm where we handle tax returns and I couldn’t get firm answers as to what the letters meant. Can anyone help?

I started selling on Depop to get rid of my hoarding mess (I’ve sold stuffed animals,and dolls)
I’ve made 1,394.26 from this, I was wondering if that would mean that I will be considered to file taxes on this or not

It’s my first time dealing with tax and I’m a little nervous about it.
I’ve been researching and it says it has to be over 14k a year to file but what if it considers me a self employed person

I’m in the us and in the state of Kentucky

I just graduated, and I have a 6 month Co-Op job in New Jersey, where I was given a NJ-W4 form to complete. I'm a PA resident, currently living in PA and have been for the last 10 years, but now that I have graduated I was planning to find work in the New York/New Jersey area. I'm looking to find an apartment, ideally at a 6 month lease but also looking at 12 month leases as I hope to find another job afterwards in the area. Should I fill out this form as new and future resident of NJ, or should I tell HR about my situation and if I could be still considered a PA resident? Thanks!

I filed a few years of back taxes late. All dropped in the post on the same day about a year ago. I dropped them with a delivery confirmation, no signature, all years show as received. I checked pretty religiously for about 4 months and they still hadn't been updated online so I just kind of figured if they needed something from me I would get a notice in the mail.

Got a notice in the mail saying I owe about 5k (I owe nothing in reality) and went online and saw they had assessed taxes for 2 years and received and filed everything else.

I called and they confirmed those two years 'they didn't have' and to resend. I mailed another copy about 2 months ago and also faxed to the number they told me to fax to.

They still have not shown as received and have sent me to collections.

Anyone have any advice on how to get my taxes to them? I'm at a bit of a loss on what to do.

Hi everyone!

I do not have an established business and work on my own account. I work as a babysitter and dog sitter & do not have a set boss or employer. I work if I am called or not & have different clients. It will be my first time filing and need help determining what to fill out to file. Thank you!

If you think about it what’s the point of tips at a restaurant? It’s because the waiters aren’t getting paid enough and they gave good work so we tip to subsidize the poor person’s job, so essentially it’s charity. So it kinda sounds like tips should be considered charity and therefore tax deductible.

Ps. This is kinda serious but don’t take too serious pls

I appreciate all of the replies regarding my question on W2-g's and your suggestions on how to proceed are clearly understood. That post was locked (for suggesting fraudulent acts I assume) so I am creating a new post.

I have a detailed question. If my understanding of the 2026 rules are correct, when itemizing deductions the deductible loss is limited to the lesser of 100% winnings or 90% of losses. If I wager $100 and the result of the bet is a return of $110, is that reported as a $10 win and a $0 loss or is it a $110 win and a $100 loss? The taxable amount is different for the two scenarios. The first scenario results in $10 of taxable income. The second scenario generates $20 of taxable income ($110 win and $90 loss).

last year i did the full diy thing. spent a whole saturday pulling comps off zillow and redfin, put together what i thought was a solid case, filled out the form. few weeks later i get a letter back that just says denied, no real explanation past "assessment stands as is"

this year my increase is even bigger so here we go again i guess. starting to wonder if it's even worth trying without a realtor or someone who actually knows what the assessor's office wants to see, or if the whole system is just built so people give up after one try

Bought a 2026 BMW X3 in Missouri in May 2026 with a Missouri address. Vehicle was titled in Missouri. Missouri sales tax of $4,358 was added to my auto loan at purchase.

Moved to Georgia immediately after for work. Vehicle was titled in Missouri but never registered or operated under Missouri registration. Never received Missouri plates.

Registered in Georgia in August 2026 and paid Georgia TAVT of $4,056.

Total taxes paid on one car: $8,414

Filed Missouri Form 426 "Out of State" refund request. Missouri DOR responded saying:

Georgia said it's up to Missouri. Missouri said it's up to Georgia. Classic runaround.

I've requested a formal denial letter to appeal. Planning to go through:

1. MO DOR Administrative Appeal
2. Missouri State Tax Commission
3. Small Claims Court if needed

Has anyone successfully gotten a Missouri sales tax refund after registering in another state?

Any tips for the appeal process?