chux03
17th March 2009, 23:53
First one I've ever gotten too. And I've been filing since 1972. At first glance I thought it was in regards to my retirement last fall and was a letter that had the "reason you're getting this notice" right out in front where you couldn't miss it. They had a box on there and it showed what they thought I owed but it was from my 2007 tax return. It seems that the brokerage company only bothers to tell them about the SALES I made during that calendar year and when I did my taxes using H&R Blocke's TaxCut I didn't put in a BUY price, so the IRS treated all of this as additional INCOME. They nailed me for an additional income of $10,600 and said the additional tax that I owe is $1908.00!!!!
WOOOOOOPS!!!!!!! I HATE when that happens!! So after a quick trip up to my local H&R Blocke, the nice lady there tells me that I just have to go back and look through my statements and get that BUY price and figure out the difference for each sale I had during that 2007 year and put that down as a loss or a profit on each sale. OhhhhhKaaaaaaaaaaaayy, I get it now.....I SEE how they figure your taxes on a brokerage account. If the thing lays dormant all year with no trades, then there's no taxes. BUT....if you trade occasionally like I do, ALL SALES ARE REPORTED AS JUST THAT....SALES. And some brokerages give you both your buy price AND your sell price but as I was with these guys for only a year or so, I had issues that I owned before using them so they wouldn't have known that. So keep track of your transactions, print out your statements etc, etc. because they could come in handy, just like here. So after a couple of hours of....bookwork back at the ranch, I managed to get that $10,600 down to $694.75 and the taxes due down from $1908 to less than $150.
She also checked on how much they withheld when I retired last fall and she did a quick back of the napkin calculation and looked up at me and said...."Oh they withheld quite a bit, I think that if you only worked half the year and can show a loss in your investments of $3 or $4 thousand, with your home's interest etc and I think this isn't AS BAD AS YOU'RE THINKING THERE, MR. SMITH." (WOW...YOU WOULDN'T KID AN OLD GUY WOULD YOU?? :D ) Anyway, she says, it's close enough not to worry about; So go home, figure out your brokerage problem and we'll see you back here on Thursday morning at 11:00 and we'll get this all....fixed.
Coooooool....see ya then! :)
WOOOOOOPS!!!!!!! I HATE when that happens!! So after a quick trip up to my local H&R Blocke, the nice lady there tells me that I just have to go back and look through my statements and get that BUY price and figure out the difference for each sale I had during that 2007 year and put that down as a loss or a profit on each sale. OhhhhhKaaaaaaaaaaaayy, I get it now.....I SEE how they figure your taxes on a brokerage account. If the thing lays dormant all year with no trades, then there's no taxes. BUT....if you trade occasionally like I do, ALL SALES ARE REPORTED AS JUST THAT....SALES. And some brokerages give you both your buy price AND your sell price but as I was with these guys for only a year or so, I had issues that I owned before using them so they wouldn't have known that. So keep track of your transactions, print out your statements etc, etc. because they could come in handy, just like here. So after a couple of hours of....bookwork back at the ranch, I managed to get that $10,600 down to $694.75 and the taxes due down from $1908 to less than $150.
She also checked on how much they withheld when I retired last fall and she did a quick back of the napkin calculation and looked up at me and said...."Oh they withheld quite a bit, I think that if you only worked half the year and can show a loss in your investments of $3 or $4 thousand, with your home's interest etc and I think this isn't AS BAD AS YOU'RE THINKING THERE, MR. SMITH." (WOW...YOU WOULDN'T KID AN OLD GUY WOULD YOU?? :D ) Anyway, she says, it's close enough not to worry about; So go home, figure out your brokerage problem and we'll see you back here on Thursday morning at 11:00 and we'll get this all....fixed.
Coooooool....see ya then! :)