u/Abbanenn

Anybody consider the TX when getting their GH? Other than price, was there any other factors that made you choose the GH over the TX?

I was able to get access to my online account finally (phone number issue), and my return (married filing joint) transcript shows a refund freeze on 4/27, but no other information. There’s no processing date, no update after the freeze, and it says ‘return not present for this account’.

We received our state refund about a week after we filed. My wife receives a pin every year, but we entered it as usual without issues. We use TurboTax as we’ve done for the last 7 years without any delays on refunds.

Should we file an amendment or wait it out? Don’t really want to waste any time on the phone if they’re just going to repeat the info online.

Background: My wife and I have a growing family and are looking for, not necessarily the cheapest, but the most convenient way to add usable square footage to our home. It’s a split level with a main floor living/dining/kitchen, 3 bedrooms and a bathroom a half level up, a family room with a bedroom and bath a half level below, and a basement that we recently finished with a laundry room/play room for the kids.

The main floor living is directly opposite a 600sqft garage that we use as a junk room. It has a gym and a place to accumulate things we never or rarely use. We had an engineer come by and he told us that the garage floor was poured on grade, and (to do it right) we’d need to dig up at least a foot, add some sort of structural footers, and match the joists to extend the existing flooring out to the garage walls. I’ve already actually insulated and drywalled the garage to help with temperature regulation for the gym area, and we’re already planning on replacing and rebalancing our HVAC system since it’s all out of whack from the previous owner.

We have no real need or desire to move - we’re in a nice area that’s walking distance to every level of grade school, have a huge yard, and the overall house footprint is plenty of total space for us long term. We just want to add more livable and usable square footage for the kids, our dogs, and family when they visit. We don’t have much equity in the home, but have spent ~$30,000 on improvements between electrical panel, fence, kitchen renovation, and the basement. We’ve DIY’d quite a bit so there’s a “sentimental value” aspect at play as well. My wife would want to build a new detached garage several years down the road in the event we did decide to sell - but it would depend on the ROI for any potential sale.

Has anyone done anything like this? Likes, dislikes? Any pros that could rough estimate cost for the digging, support, and joists for that square footage?