Now that I know I don’t have to cough up a big chunk of cash to pay taxes, I decided to invest a little bit. I still need to pay bills, including my credit card bill. But I figured I could spare a couple hundred dollars. I went to my brokerage account. I have gotten away from buying individual stocks. Some have donw good, others have done bad, and some are still middle of the road. My funds on the other hand have down pretty well. I like IYR, a REIT index fund. But it is not a good choice from my regular account due to the tax implecations. I currently have a couple ETF index funds in my regualr account. IJS (A small cap index fund) and EEM (an emegring markets index fund). I looked at buying $100 of each, but then changed my mind. I own a lot more of the IJS than I do the EEM in this account. Plus I own a small cap fund in my 401k. And I think I might own some inside my Roth IRA. So I decided to buy $200 worth of the EEM emerging markets fund. I still have one more free trade this month, so I may buy something else later. Maybe more of the EEM.
I talked with our accountant this morning. He is still working on my return. But it looks like we are going to get an $1100 refund from the Feds! But we will have to pay around $250 to NY state. So we wont have to be makeing estimtated tax payments to the feds this year. But our estimated taxes to the state will increase a little bit. This is the first time in many years that I have gotten a refund! WOW! I thought I was going to have to pay taxes.
He is still working on them, and doing the estimated taxes and stuff. We are going over to pick them up Sunday morning. He will do efile. But we will still have to mail the stuff on Monday or Tuesday. That will be interesting as we are going to be in Canada. We will probably have to drive back to the USA to mail off our NY State tax return, and then drive back to Canada. We could probably mail the NYS tax stuff from one of those automated postal machines, but then it wouldn’t be certified with return reciept requested.
Oh well. I hope crossing the border isn’t too much of a pain.
I haven’t heard from my accountant, so I gave him a call today. I asked about my tax return, and he said he was working on on it. I guess I need to get my tax stuff to him sooner. Actually I have known that. I have used the same CPA for about 6 or 7 years, and he is very good. But every year, my wife and procrastinate getting our tax stuff together for him. Personally, I hate doing taxes. I used to use Turbo Tax or Tax cut, but they were so stressfull. One year, I figured out I owed $5000 Federal tax, and hadn’t even gotten to state. Then I took my tax stuff to the account, and he got it down to $2000 Federal. He knew about deductions I could take. I am sure the deductions are in the software, but if you don’t know about taxes, and legal stuff to begin with… But the sooner we get our tax stuff to the accountant, the sooner we get it back, since he puts his clients in a queue based on when he recieves their stuff.
Anyway, he said he was currently working on our tax return and will give me a call when it is ready. Then I can go pick it up. My wife and I will need to sign it. Then he said I can just fax the signed page to him, since we are doing efile. I would still like to know how much we owe so I know how much money we will need. I may have to sell some of my stocks. Not sure. Depends on how much we owe. We did shove a bucnh of money into our 401k’s, so that should lower our tax base some.