Originally Posted by Poppy girl

I am not going to chance it or neither do I have the patience to read up on it either
I have so much to claim for ie flights,3 cars,moved state,I can claim business travel to the UK and Australia,Computers, car repairs, and thats off the top of my head I will let my buddy do it just to be on the safe side.

Originally Posted by Rete

We have an accountant. What with foreign income and foreign old age pension and US income, we feel it is best to have a professional handle the return.

Originally Posted by sunflwrgrl13

Not completely true. We cashed out two 401k's as well this year. We opted to have the investment company take out the Federal taxes (at a rate of 20%), so the only thing we will have to worry about is state taxes, assuming your state taxes the income from 401k early cashouts. My aunt is a CPA and she doesn't think they are taxable in our state, but that's probably different everywhere. We also didn't spend all the money from the 401k to help pay any taxes that could come due.

I am doing our taxes with Turbotax. I'm simply entering in all of the W-2's, 1099's and 1098's that we have for the year. So far, despite having cashed out the two 401k's, TT says we are due a fairly sizeable federal refund. The refund from federal will more than likely take care of any state taxes due. FWIW, we also moved to a diff state, bought a house last year and also have student loan interest to write off.

I've used TT ever since it became available around 10-12 years ago and file electronically every year (except for one year where we had to pay). So far, never had a problem (or an audit).

Originally Posted by Rete

We have an accountant. What with foreign income and foreign old age pension and US income, we feel it is best to have a professional handle the return.

Originally Posted by cindyabs

Tax preparation cost is tax deductible.

Originally Posted by Longy

I wonder if this is a line sold by accountants - I think this is only if your job and misc expenses are over 2% of your gross income so for most people this is not the case.

Originally Posted by tamms_1965

No. Regular tax filers can deduct. I've always deducted it .....when I had an accountant do it and when I've done my own.

Originally Posted by Longy

I wonder if this is a line sold by accountants - I think this is only if your job and misc expenses are over 2% of your gross income so for most people this is not the case.

Originally Posted by Longy

Well I am using Taxact and the tax preperation comes under the Job and Misc expenses section. It states it will deduct if these go over 2% of my gross pay (well it says the amount based on what I entered earlier).

So I can enter the tax prep expenses, but it doesn't deduct anything because they don't come near 2%.

Of course if you had a lot of job expenses then it probably would deduct.

Originally Posted by tamms_1965

You may be correct. I had enough job-related expenses....I paid out the *ss for union dues. Teachers can also deduct up to $250 for unreimbursed expenses. So I just had enough.

Originally Posted by Dan B

I do it by hand myself. I do several iterations to see which claims where get me the most back.

It sucked being on a J-1 because you had to file 1040NR which didn't get you any deductions, but on H1-B getting that money back it sweet... ironically, it costs about the same as not paying SS and medicare

I claimed 0 and 0 this year on the paychecks, so with a little back from the student loan deduction, I should be getting $1.5k back... and a little from the State too.

Originally Posted by Longy

I wonder if this is a line sold by accountants - I think this is only if your job and misc expenses are over 2% of your gross income so for most people this is not the case.