Comments on: 7 Stupidest Tax Mistakes to Avoid

By: J. Money

J. Money — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:02:04 +0000

Us too! We are s-l-a-c-k-i-n-g. Although, there’s a little more to the story that I can’t relay here on the blog…kinda frustrating.

By: Roger, the Amateur Financier

Roger, the Amateur Financier — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 20:35:06 +0000

An impressive list of blunders. I’ve been lucky enough to avoid any of these mistakes (although, my fiancee and I need to get going on filing this year, or we’re going to run afoul of #1…), but it’s always good to be reminded of what I might miss.

By: J. Money

J. Money — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 02:07:59 +0000

Thanks for the great post Lisatella! @lenciB - Hah! VERY lucky indeed :) @Keith @ LifeTuner - You are naughty, sir. Rule #1 of Money Club is NO spending until you've got it! ;) @harvestwages - Many people get caught or arrested too! Not worth the risk.

By: harvestwages

harvestwages — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:10:19 +0000

Great tips,
paying of taxes is a must. Many turn to keep that out claiming it will help maximize savings.,

By: Keith @ LifeTuner

Keith @ LifeTuner — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 02:49:36 +0000

I made a small tax blunder this year. I had saved money to pay the taxes that I knew I was going to owe due to several months of self-employment. When I started entering my forms into TurboTax, it was becoming apparent that I had saved more than I was going to owe. We were waiting for one final 1099 to come in when my wife decided she’d had enough of her computer crashing. I estimated the impact of the 1099 on our taxes, and we spent the extra money we had saved on new computers. When the 1099 finally came, my estimations were off, and we were $1,000 short. Luckily I had enough money in other accounts to pay for it.

By: lenciB

lenciB — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:04:44 +0000

Not filing is insane! lol. We made a minor mistake when we refiled out 2008 taxes to get our $8,000 tax credit sooner after we bought out house last year…and somehow we had our old address on the tax return. By the grace of God they forwarded the check to our new address, because they aren’t supposed to do that. They’re supposed to return them to the IRS and make you refile!

By: Lisatella

Lisatella — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:03:43 +0000

@JoeTaxpayer: I’ll confess that I did end up e-filing with TurboTax for my federal return this year. TurboTax found a credit that really saved my butt–I never would have caught it had I done everything by hand. Plus, using the printout of my federal taxes made it very easy when I went back and did my state return by hand.

Even with calculators though, I think errors can still be rampant on paper returns. One misplaced digit can be the end of you!

Thanks for reading, everyone. :)

By: J. Money

J. Money — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:54:27 +0000

@Victorino – I don’t want to imagine :)
@kt – Yeah, that’s probably mostly true. There are still those who go old school, but maybe they’ve perfected it over the years?
@JoeTaxpayer – Hah! I didn’t know that actually…although I’ve been using an accountant for years. I still plan on trying them via TurboTax myself this year, but still filing w/ the accountant to see how far off I was….and oddly enough I’ve guest posted on TT too ;) But more to convince people to donate more and get those write offs, baby!

By: JoeTaxpayer

JoeTaxpayer — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:11:43 +0000

As far as the math goes – I’d recommend using tax software to be sure to get it right. Often, an amateur doing it by hand can easily miss an item that might pay 4X the cost of that software. Did you know that even filers who don’t itemize can take up to $1000 (MFJ) or $500 (single) for their property tax? I’d bet that most ‘by hand’ non-itemizers miss it.

(disclosure – I am a guest blogger on TurboTax, but only because I’ve used the product for 25 years now, not for the free T-shirt they owe me)

By: kt

kt — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:45:03 +0000

i dont think that math errors exist anymore because i do not know of anyone who does money calculations by hand anymore. there is software and calculators and other people for that kind of thing