r/taxadvice

I am pretty tired of stressing about tax returns every year for fear of being taxed twice on the same income earned here. Automated software always glitches when it comes to more complicated situations outside the US, and I simply no longer trust putting my data in there.

I need a human approach so that I can be at ease knowing my documents are perfectly in order with the IRS and that I won't wake up to surprises or penalties. Which experts do you work with to resolve this part of complicated international taxes, and how have you ensured so far that you don't pay double taxes by mistake?

I’ve been at my NY-based company for 5 years, 4 of which I have been remote in NJ. I occasionally (less than 1x per quarter) will go into the office, usually for work dinners or conventions. My employer never marked me as a remote worker. On my paychecks, I have state income tax withholding for both NY and NJ.

Since I am currently going through the process of state benefits for maternity leave (was paying into NY And told to apply in NJ), my employer is requesting I now provide them with exactly how I want to be taxed and where I want my work location to be listed as. Since I work in NJ and live here, I requested both be listed as NJ but that due to the convenience of the employer law in NY, I need state income tax withholding from NY. HR is telling me ADP can only withhold from a single state (which doesn’t make sense bc I currently get both states taken out…). They have now moved all my taxes to NJ, with no withholding in NY.

Is this correct? Shouldn’t I be paying NY state income tax?

We've been chartering flights individually for executive travel, but the costs are adding up and I'm wondering if a private jet card would make more financial sense for us. I understand these cards typically involve prepaying for a set number of flight hours, but I'm not clear on how that prepayment is treated for tax purposes versus a straight charter expense. I also want to know whether the depreciation or deduction rules differ if the card is used for a mix of business and personal travel by our executives. Before we commit to this kind of spend, I need to understand how it could affect our year-end tax position.

I run a small consulting S Corp. My revenue was about 85k and my expenses were around 30k. I have not made any estimated tax payments this year. I am trying to figure out if I owe federal and state taxes on the full 85k or just the profit.

I have an accountant friend who said I should be paying myself a reasonable salary but I have not done that either. Now Im worried about penalties for not making quarterly payments. Has anyone been in a similar situation and can tell me what to expect.

Hello everyone! I recently got my first client for a small web development side hustle I started on my own. It’s not a registered business or anything official, and I don’t have another job. I just turned 18 and will be starting college soon.
So far, the client paid me $200 upfront for building their website, and they now pay me $110 per month for ongoing services (only about half of that is actually profit after my expenses).
I’m still claimed as a dependent by my parents, so my dad handles our family’s taxes. Do I need to report this income, and is it something I should tell him about? Will I need to file my own tax return, or does it get handled another way?
I’m just trying to make sure I do everything correctly since this is my first time earning money from freelancing.

I mailed in my husband’s state and federal returns this year (on tax day) because he couldn’t remember his PIN or his agi from last year. The state shows his 2025 as filed and accepted, but the irs says the federal return has not been processed. Did it get lost in the mail? Is there a chance they got it and it’s taking this long to process? What should we do? TIA!

Looking for advice! Recently discovered that I should not be contributing to my Roth IRA now that I am married. We would like to file taxes for 2026 married filing separately due to my income driven student loan repayment option. That being said our income is about $0. So we shouldnt be contributing to the Roth IRA.

My question is: will i be penalized on my taxes if i contributed my yearly Roth IRA max contribution for 2026 PRIOR to becoming married. Example: $7,500 contributed to 2026 Roth IRA in March. Married in May.

I know there is the traditional IRA back door option, which I plan on pursuing.

I work for a company which is entirely Medicaid funded where the owner takes what I consider to be a high salary and frequent draws for items and services which seem to be loosely related to company expenses at best. The owner also purchased a house with company money to then rent to live in. In my limited understanding of S Corps, there does seem to be flexibility in the draws an owner takes in addition to their salary. But what I can’t reconcile is the use of Medicaid funds which seem highly regulated. Can anyone help me understand how Medicaid funds should be used within an S Corp?

I am 66 and my spouse is 62 and neither of us are collecting our benefits. My FRA is $3880 and my spouse’s FRA is $1949. I may not be accurate in my assumptions but I was hoping my spouse could take Social Security now at $1388 per month, and when I take Social Security at 67 (and collect $3880) my spouse would be eligible for the spousal excess or bump equivalent (a several hundred dollar a month increase). From my limited understanding of how this all works, Social Security compares our FRAs, and then calculates 50% of my FRA, and if it is 0 or less than my spouse’s FRA, my spouse would not be eligible. In our case, this calculation results in a negative $9 meaning the spousal excess will not trigger. Am I understanding this correctly and can anything be done (absent checking for errors on employment dates, etc) to move from - $9 dollars to greater than $0 so the spousal excess will kick in? Any other thoughts? Thanks in advance, I really appreciate it!

EDIT: what is being included in the quote is 1,500 per tax year, 3,400 for resolution & ongoing communications with irs/state franchise board. Plus the schedule C for the LLC

I am going to try to not make this too long. I am helping my parents i did not know that they hadn’t filed in the last 3 years and only found out when i made them an id me account and then saw they had a balance of 5,300 in collections from the irs from 2022. We decided to look for help and got a quote of 7,900 for them to prepare the 3 years, communicate with the irs/ ca state board and help with resolution. We paid a non refundable deposit of 495 but that is given as credit to the total balance. My dad is an owner operator for his own trucking company sole driver and has an llc for it so obviously the expenses of all of that have to go into play. They’re not sure if they have all of the 1099s because most of the companies did not report it since it’s not coming up on his transcripts so we have to go through bank statements and look into all the deposits and put them into a tax organizer for the preparers for them to be able to start. I guess I’m just wondering if this is an okay quote price? Realistically he can’t pay it all up front so we would do payment plans of 700 something for 10 months and they would send all the documents until we are done paying them off first.

In June 2025 I rolled over a 401k to an IRA, as I am no longer employed by the employer affiliated with the 401k. At the same time a Roth 401k was rolled into a Roth IRA, with the same financial company. In February I looked on the portal to see if there were tax forms, I did not find any, so assumed I did not have any. Now just a week ago, 3 months after filing my taxes, I received two forms 5498 disclosing my rollover amounts. I did not pay any taxes on these accounts, and I do not owe any taxes, as there were no dispersals. Do I need to file an amended return? Thanks so much for any advice.

I have't filed my taxes for 2024 or 2025 yet because of restitution paid to a former employer. The thought of filing them makes me extremely anxious. I've always done my own taxes, but this is an issue that I have a few questions about.

From reading the actual tax code, it sounds as though since it was categorized as restitution that I could possibly use it as an expense on my taxes.

Can anybody help me? I need to know where this would be processed on my tax return so that I can finally get it out of the way and put behind me.

What options, if any, do I have if I won a car that the company who gave it away says it’s value is even more than the manufacturers MSRP? I’m talking 25 grand more. I can’t even option it out to the hilt on the manufacturer website to get anywhere close to what this company says it’s worth. They haven’t done anything to it, it’s stock. I find myself potentially paying taxes on 25 grand more than I should. Now I’m still ahead as I needed a car and now I have one, so even paying the additional tax is WAY cheaper than having to buy even a used car so I’m not complaining, just wanting to pay what I owe. Thanks for your advice.

So long story short, I decided to do my taxes by myself as I’ve been doing for the past years, and I was really stupid this year, and literally forgot to add all my expenses. It came up that I owe +8000 dollars (obviously money I don’t have) so I double checked, realized my mistake and immediately filed an amendment, which came up to me actually getting 600 dollars back as return. They haven’t even receive the amendment, let alone processed it, but sent out a letter saying I have 4 days to pay the 8000 dollars. What should I do?

I received this back in April; I have vet to do anvthing as I'm recovering from a severe car accident and couldn't even open mail. Any suggestions? I'm having neck surgerv and under several doctors' orders.

I filled an extension back in April 2024, but was in the car accident June 2024 and my life has been derailed. This has not been a priority. I did the calculations with my tax preparer back then and I owe about $300 USD. I'm calling soon. I can't pay to file nor the $300 due to my financial situation recovering from accident.

Edit: I'm considered disabled and have DMV placard etc

Thank you in advance!

Hey guys. I’ll keep this short and sweet. My grandma passed last year, January of 2025, and left my mom her house. My mom sold that house January of this year. She purchased a new home March of this year. Today, she sold her primary residence that she owned since 2009. It was my understanding that if she sold her primary home and used the money to purchase a new home, the money from the sale would not be taxed, and that the sale of an inherited home also would not be taxed. (We live in California, for reference).

However, she’s stubborn as all hell and went to the county assessor sometime last year before selling my grandma’s house to make it her “primary residence” as to avoid paying high property taxes (I believe to take advantage of Prop 19). I told her it wasn’t worth doing as she only planned to keep the house a few more months, but she didn’t listen. Now we’re wondering if she screwed herself over because of the change of “primary residence” and if she’ll owe capital gains taxes on one of the houses, or if she would’ve had to do that regardless of how it was filed with the assessor.

We are welcome to any possible insight. We are also wondering what type of tax accountant would be best to find to file her taxes next year. Thank you so much!

My friend (UK citizen) is moving to US with her UK husband. Husband will be on an R1 visa. Spouse will be on R2 dependent which does not allow employment.

Can spouse work during summer visits (1-2 months) in the UK? Since she is only working when in the UK? Or does this violate the visa terms?

First, thanks to all that commented on my last post with advice and guidance regarding my situation. I wanted to update and ask a few other questions. High level summary of original issue:

-Employer paid employees bonuses, stipends, commissions( anything out sided normal hours/OT worked) on a separate check that had absolutely no withholdings.

-Employer had us all in a meeting and advised their CPA found a 'loophole' on paying out the above items with no withholdings on their side or ours, said there is noting to worry about it is all good. This was end of 2022 began in 2023

- Employer has paid out roughly 1.3MM this way, under the table if you will over the course of the last 3 years

Okay so back to the update, my original reason for asking about all this is I left the company, they were not happy, clawed back wages from a training I attended, tried to interfere with my new employer by falsely reporting OSHA issues and claiming I entered the Union for the newer Job with false qualifications and so on. I had enough and filed a wage dispute on the clawedback wages which went from a $2600 mess up on their part to a roughly $54k potential suit via penetalies and all that fun mess. During this little legal dispute they have altered documents, and pulled outrageous claims out their behinds to try to squash the case and increase their leverage but my lawyer and myself have been successful in countering all their shenanigans. We finally got to settlement negotiations and I noticed in part of their settlement, they claimed there was damage to property that occured in '23 and thats why they took the wages. Well that was when I decided I wanted to hit them as hard as I possibly could not out of revenge but out of principle and the fact they have screwed over many employees past and present and continue to do so and just think they are untouchable. That is where I was reminded of the issue at hand : the potentially illegal payments of bonuses etc.

I cane here and the other subreddit to ask guidance just on the compensation part but as ive gathered information I have made a couple discoveries I'd love guidance on and someone tell me if I watched too many episodes of Lincoln Lawyer 🤣

1. I truly actually do want to get my situation fixed so I have gotten all documentation to submit to the IRS I could find to get started on paying in what I owe, but through this I've been advised it could trigger an investigation of the business. Is that true?

2. I often overlook the fact the part of the company i worked for is listed as a DBA of XYZ company and is the smaller side of the 2 companies (roughly 87 employees total where i was and about 280 at the larger side) and they are actually tied together via the accounting, insurance, etc with the much larger side and file all of that stuff as XYZ LLC. Would my potential issue of tax fraud affect the other entity as well? (They paid out significantly more than the smaller side i worked for in the under the table method)

3. Is there somewhere I can call or email with the information to see what options are as far as reporting then and if it is worthwhile to pursue. Though I've seen you can do a whistle blower type deal and potentially get 15-30% of the reclaimed amount, I dont care about a reward or compensation, I want to ensure they are reported and corrected if there is a legitimate claim here and I ultimately want to make sure they dont pull this mess in the future as it seems nice to have a nice amount of undocumented income but it hurts purchasing power, and opens the employees to risks of tax issues that the employer directed them to do.

Sorry for the super long post. I am just overly curious about this whole situation and I have no clue what I am doing, obviously 😁

Also to note, during the settlement phase, we requested documentation of all the 'under the table' payments, they then made assumptions i am going to file the issue and tried including language in the settle docs that 'employee acknowledges all compensation paid by XYZ to the employee was done legally and properly documented' and also a clause in the NDA that attempts to limit my ability to report, which further points to they know they messed up and want to keep it under wraps. But again I may be crazy.

Thanks for reading my book!

I made a mistake. I entered the wrong account numbers while taking a rollover distribution and deposited $95,000 meant for a traditional IRA into a Roth IRA and $2,000 meant for the Roth into the traditional IRA.

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I turned 73 this year. I had one outstanding RMD ($8k) left after the mistake. As soon as I discovered it I needed to take it I took it (a month later).

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I understand that I am liable for excess contributions to the Roth because I didn't take that RMD earlier and I need to make a withdrawal of those. Does that mean withdraw the ($8k) and any earnings on it from the Roth?

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I understand that a waiver of the penalty can be requested with form 5329. I also understand that I will have to file form 8606. Any others?

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Do I need to have form 5498 corrected as the sending institution doesn't know I mixed up the account numbers?

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How do I avoid getting a Medicare surtax? My normal income is $50,000

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I did pay estimated taxes for this quarter.

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I have not had success finding a tax professional.

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Thank you for your help.

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Hey y'all, I (German tax resident, no US residency, greencard, citizenshop) received royalties from books sold in the US in 2025. I can apparently claim treaty benefits and reduce the tax withholdings in the US from 30% to 0%. I didn't do that for 2025 and now would like to get my overpaid money back. I filed a W7 to get an ITIN and attached Amazon's 1042-S.

Checkbox a and h, referencing Article 12 (Royalties) under Exception 1 referencing the instruction sheet.

I just received a rejection letter stating:

"We rejected your ITIN application because the supporting documents you sent don't support the exception to filling a U.S. tax return that you claimed."

The hotline is overloaded and my call automatically rejected. What do I need to file to get my ITIN?