Any Tax experts out there?

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burningwheelburningwheel
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Ok here is the story....



My wife works, I'm on disabilty and have been for quite sometime. We file a joint tax return



This year "I" sold a lot of stock. Could I file a seperate return so I wouldn't have to pay as much capital gains? I'd also like to file seperately since my disability would be taxed this year for the first time becasue my wife made over a certain amount of money



I'm clueless, how does this work? would they see that my wife made x and so money and make me pay huge capital gains anyways?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    Sounds like you need someone to prepare your taxes. For what it's worth the last time I estimated tax tax for my wife and I filing separately and together there was no real difference in the tax.
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  • Reply 2 of 7
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    I'm going to have to mirror Scott's sentiments. You're not going to get the kind of advice here you'd get from a professional.



    Call up some local places and ask them what they charge. That's my advice.
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  • Reply 3 of 7
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member
    Many of these online tax sites let you do your taxes for free - you only have to pay if you submit. You can try out different scenarios like filing jointly vs. separately. In my state taxes, filing separately saves me quite a bit of money.
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  • Reply 4 of 7
    kneelbeforezodkneelbeforezod Posts: 1,120member
    If you have a lot of medical expenses or expenses related to your investment income (legal advice, broker fees), there'll most likely be a tax benefit to reducing the taxable income to which these expenses are applied by filing separate returns.



    Again, like everyone above has already said, the best thing to do is to take it to a professional. Only someone who has all your information will be able to tell you what the best course of action is. Have them run both married filing jointly and married filing separately returns (which they should be able to do with a few clicks of a mouse using the same data) and let you know the bottom line on both filing options. I would suggest that you just do this yourself, but a professional might be able to help you identify additional deductions pertaining to your investments.



    Oh, and be sure to go to someone who will give you a fixed price. This does not sound like a particularly complicated situation (compared to some), so it shouldn't cost too much.
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  • Reply 5 of 7
    burningwheelburningwheel Posts: 1,827member
    thanks for all the replies. i do have 2 friends who are tax attorney's but i'm not that close to them anymore but i suspect i'll have to break down and call one of them



    i usually do my own on the computer, so i could run joint and seperately. i was mainly curious to see if could get away with filing seperately and it sounds like i can.



    i'll talk to my friend though



    thanks again!
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  • Reply 6 of 7
    dmzdmz Posts: 5,775member
    You mght grab a copy of macintax and run it both ways -- I would suspect that you will find that the government vultur..... er, tax attorneys, will be one step ahead of you on this.





    I've always found that, unless you really lose money, they've got you by the huevos.
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  • Reply 7 of 7
    burningwheelburningwheel Posts: 1,827member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dmz

    You mght grab a copy of macintax and run it both ways -- I would suspect that you will find that the government vultur..... er, tax attorneys, will be one step ahead of you on this.





    I've always found that, unless you really lose money, they've got you by the huevos.



    i used to use that, i use TaxCut now, it's cheaper



    thanks
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