Author Topic: Learning taxes  (Read 2602 times)

Catica

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Learning taxes
« on: November 12, 2018, 01:29:31 PM »
Where does one go to learn everything about taxes?  I found https://apps.irs.gov/app/understandingTaxes/index.jsp, but it's outdated.

Thanks!

seattlecyclone

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Re: Learning taxes
« Reply #1 on: November 12, 2018, 01:39:34 PM »
I think learning everything about taxes is basically impossible. Learning about the things that might affect you is much more feasible.

Where I started was to simply go through the 1040 line by line, reading the instructions for any line that looked possibly relevant. Sometimes the instructions will refer you to a numbered IRS publication for more information about the topic. Read those too. You don't need to know everything about everything; it's sufficient to know everything about the things that apply to you this year, and to know a little bit about things that might apply to you in the future so that you can look into whether or not it makes sense to change your behavior going forward.

terran

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Re: Learning taxes
« Reply #2 on: November 12, 2018, 01:42:15 PM »
Personally I would start with Form 1040 (may as well use the 2018 draft so you're current since lots has changed this year https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-dft/f1040--dft.pdf). Fill that out with some made up numbers, follow every reference to other forms, schedules, and worksheets, and read the instructions when you don't understand something. Throw in some numbers of a made up business, and similarly for any other form of income you're interested in (investments, rentals, etc). If you don't know as much or more about personal income taxes than 90% of the people who post here I would be very surprised.

Here's the rest of the draft tax forms to help you find what you need as you go through the 1040: https://apps.irs.gov/app/picklist/list/draftTaxForms.html

Catica

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Re: Learning taxes
« Reply #3 on: November 12, 2018, 02:08:30 PM »
Personally I would start with Form 1040 (may as well use the 2018 draft so you're current since lots has changed this year https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-dft/f1040--dft.pdf). Fill that out with some made up numbers, follow every reference to other forms, schedules, and worksheets, and read the instructions when you don't understand something. Throw in some numbers of a made up business, and similarly for any other form of income you're interested in (investments, rentals, etc). If you don't know as much or more about personal income taxes than 90% of the people who post here I would be very surprised.

Here's the rest of the draft tax forms to help you find what you need as you go through the 1040: https://apps.irs.gov/app/picklist/list/draftTaxForms.html
And the people who do taxes how do they know what they know?

MDM

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Re: Learning taxes
« Reply #4 on: November 12, 2018, 06:43:09 PM »
If one can put the equations into a spreadsheet then one probably understands it, and vice versa.

That philosophy has worked for taxes, analyzing a family member's indexed annuity, etc.

Doing our family tax spreadsheet from scratch now would be daunting.  But having started when our situation was much simpler, it hasn't been difficult to add new wrinkles as needed.  Then just copy the current year's columns to the right, and we're off to a good start for next year.

Catica

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Re: Learning taxes
« Reply #5 on: November 13, 2018, 03:33:25 AM »
OK, I can do my own taxes because there is nothing complicated about my situation but I want to know more than that.  How do people who work for HR Block get trained?

Turkey Leg

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Re: Learning taxes
« Reply #6 on: November 13, 2018, 04:29:46 AM »
OK, I can do my own taxes because there is nothing complicated about my situation but I want to know more than that.  How do people who work for HR Block get trained?
I assume they pay for some sort of university course.

Lynda.com has some tax-related courses. My local library provides a free login to Lynda.com. Maybe yours does as well.

Zacharias

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Re: Learning taxes
« Reply #7 on: November 13, 2018, 06:46:19 AM »
OK, I can do my own taxes because there is nothing complicated about my situation but I want to know more than that.  How do people who work for HR Block get trained?

H&R Block has an income tax course that they put together as a basic qualification to work in an office. You can read about it here if interested https://www.hrblock.com/corporate/income-tax-course/.

As others have mentioned, I have gained most of my experience just by going through my own tax returns as they slowly get more complicated. While I've not been to a tax preparer at H&R Block, I wouldn't expect the front line reps to have as much experience as was gained just through working my own returns.

MDM

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Re: Learning taxes
« Reply #8 on: November 13, 2018, 09:09:34 AM »
See also Volunteers Needed for AARP Foundation Tax-Aide if you are so inclined.  The Tax-Aide folks will train volunteers for that program.

reeshau

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Re: Learning taxes
« Reply #9 on: November 13, 2018, 09:22:03 AM »
OK, I can do my own taxes because there is nothing complicated about my situation but I want to know more than that.  How do people who work for HR Block get trained?

H&R Block has an income tax course that they put together as a basic qualification to work in an office. You can read about it here if interested https://www.hrblock.com/corporate/income-tax-course/.

As others have mentioned, I have gained most of my experience just by going through my own tax returns as they slowly get more complicated. While I've not been to a tax preparer at H&R Block, I wouldn't expect the front line reps to have as much experience as was gained just through working my own returns.

The other thing H&R Block people have is the software they use to do returns.  Just like the software you can use at home, it walks through the lines of a tax return step-by-step.

froggie

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Re: Learning taxes
« Reply #10 on: November 23, 2018, 08:09:42 PM »
Did you find any good books about taxes?

I would like to find books that address taxes & how-to for 1099 income, including AirBnB revenue, section 179 applications, and real estate investing.

Someone share please :)

markbike528CBX

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Re: Learning taxes
« Reply #11 on: November 23, 2018, 09:17:16 PM »
Personally I would start with Form 1040 (may as well use the 2018 draft so you're current since lots has changed this year https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-dft/f1040--dft.pdf). Fill that out with some made up numbers, follow every reference to other forms, schedules, and worksheets, and read the instructions when you don't understand something. Throw in some numbers of a made up business, and similarly for any other form of income you're interested in (investments, rentals, etc). If you don't know as much or more about personal income taxes than 90% of the people who post here I would be very surprised.

Here's the rest of the draft tax forms to help you find what you need as you go through the 1040: https://apps.irs.gov/app/picklist/list/draftTaxForms.html
I'd start with last years 1040 input values and verify the results are close to what you and the IRS came up with.   THEN start adding the made up numbers.

terran

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Re: Learning taxes
« Reply #12 on: November 23, 2018, 09:26:40 PM »
Personally I would start with Form 1040 (may as well use the 2018 draft so you're current since lots has changed this year https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-dft/f1040--dft.pdf). Fill that out with some made up numbers, follow every reference to other forms, schedules, and worksheets, and read the instructions when you don't understand something. Throw in some numbers of a made up business, and similarly for any other form of income you're interested in (investments, rentals, etc). If you don't know as much or more about personal income taxes than 90% of the people who post here I would be very surprised.

Here's the rest of the draft tax forms to help you find what you need as you go through the 1040: https://apps.irs.gov/app/picklist/list/draftTaxForms.html
I'd start with last years 1040 input values and verify the results are close to what you and the IRS came up with.   THEN start adding the made up numbers.

That's generally a good tip. It's how I started when we decided to drop our tax preparer. It's probably still not a bad idea, but things have changed quite a bit this year with the new tax law so the new 1040 looks pretty different (mostly just moved a lot of what was on it to separate schedules).

markbike528CBX

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Re: Learning taxes
« Reply #13 on: November 24, 2018, 12:22:55 AM »
Personally I would start with Form 1040 (may as well use the 2018 draft so you're current since lots has changed this year https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-dft/f1040--dft.pdf). Fill that out with some made up numbers, follow every reference to other forms, schedules, and worksheets, and read the instructions when you don't understand something. Throw in some numbers of a made up business, and similarly for any other form of income you're interested in (investments, rentals, etc). If you don't know as much or more about personal income taxes than 90% of the people who post here I would be very surprised.

Here's the rest of the draft tax forms to help you find what you need as you go through the 1040: https://apps.irs.gov/app/picklist/list/draftTaxForms.html
I'd start with last years 1040 input values and verify the results are close to what you and the IRS came up with.   THEN start adding the made up numbers.

That's generally a good tip. It's how I started when we decided to drop our tax preparer. It's probably still not a bad idea, but things have changed quite a bit this year with the new tax law so the new 1040 looks pretty different (mostly just moved a lot of what was on it to separate schedules).
There are changes, but if the OP has W-2 wages, I'd suspect the final tax amounts are not too different (+- 1k).  A factor of 2 or more difference would be a red flag.

flipboard

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Re: Learning taxes
« Reply #14 on: November 25, 2018, 12:09:24 AM »
I would second the suggestion of just going through the raw forms themselves. Depending on country, you may want to use paid tax software or an advisor to do the actual submission, but you can learn most of the tax code by yourself.

In my current/preferred/permanent country, it's quite easy, since the (free, government produced*) software asks you for all the possible deductions in the form of a questionnaire and/or automatically calculates the few percentage-based deductions. And you can then view the generated forms / edit them directly. And the form & software has links to the relevant part of the tax instructions so it's easy to understand when a given deduction might apply.

When I spent a short time in the US I learned it the hard way by actually doing the 1040NR calculations by hand. I also learned you really don't want to do the form by hand since it's easy to make a transcription mistake requiring recalculating the rest of the form. (And I imagine it's even worse for people with the 1040 due to additional data entry required.) But you'll still learn about the main deductions.

Once you have a general idea of how the taxes work, it's easy to perform further research yourself for the various special cases where there might be additional deductions / special allowances / etc, and/or how to arrange your finances to optimise your taxes (there seems to be a lot more scope for this kind of thing in the US with all the complex rules around capital gains and the infinite number of retirement schemes).

* I don't think the government themselves produce it, AFAIUI they contract that out to a third party who writes the actual software. But it's still made available to everyone for free.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2018, 12:11:11 AM by flipboard »

skuzuker28

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Re: Learning taxes
« Reply #15 on: November 27, 2018, 11:26:59 AM »
Tax preparation and consulting has been my primary source of income for most of my adult life, I am professionally licensed and on track to become an owner of my employer, and I have no hesitation when I say I do not know everything about taxes.  I'd even say I don't know MOST of the tax law when you consider the various state and local tax laws across the country.  With sheer volume of law, court precedence, and regulatory guidance even if you somehow got through it all it would be out of date and incorrect.  There is a reason I have to take a minimum of 80 hours of continuing education to maintain my license.

I learned primarily by doing, since my education was not in accounting.  Doing forms by hand, doing my own research, learning from coworkers, etc.  The H&R Block class might be a good start (I've never taken it), but it is only a start.  Given the results I have seen from that "firm", I don't think I'd count on it giving you more than the very basics.

 

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