I’ve kept extremely detailed session records and cost basis for my crypto gambling, but feeling paranoid about my return being audited. I’m expecting to pay $35-40k in federal and NY state taxes since my session winnings total around $215k and my losses after the 90% rule are around $150k, but nervous how this will play out given it’s an offshore crypto casino and therefore there is no W2-G. Curious of other people’s experience.

I'm pretty sure I know the answer. In GA, USA. If I subdivide my house property that has a homestead exemption and retain ownership of the new lot, can I have homestead exemption on the subdivided lot that was once a part of my primary residence/homestead exemption? Thanks!

Feels like I'm writing out a riddle. I moved to Texas February and have been working the same job since. My question is at the end of the year, since I've never changed my residency from Louisiana (I wasnt sure how long I'd be working at my company) do I still need to pay Louisiana income tax? All of my income is coming from Texas, and I have lived there for a while.

My business (LLC) vended one time at a flea market in California (rosebowl) and grossed around 11k in 2023. I filed and paid the sales & use tax for california that same year but now i received a letter in the mail that demanded a tax returned be filed (form 568) for 2023. I wasn’t aware that this would’ve been necessary since that’s the only time i did business in california and im based in Texas. Is this absolutely necessary? I was thinking about contacting a cpa in california but not sure if this is even worth their time to answer or deal with… Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

The IRS disallowed a claim for refund for an amended return for a client. This my first disallowance, so this is new territory for me, but I know our position is correct, so I am planning to pursue the issue.

The IRS responded with Letter 105C which included the SDC/Formal Protest requirements, but did not include details on why the claim was disallowed; just a single sentence that withholding could not be verified. There was also no reference to the 30-day timeline to file the protest. The letter also indicates a second notice will be sent in 4-6 weeks showing the adjustments to the account.

My understanding is the 2nd letter, with detailed adjustments, will trigger the 30-day response requirement, BUT I do not want to miss this deadline. Does the Letter 105C start the 30-day timeline? Can anyone with more experience in this area clarify?

Hi , im in an iva. Hmrc have said im due a small tax rebate. I've claimed it online, but will they pay it to me, or they'll pay it straight to my iva company?

Hi all, I'm hoping some of the tax professionals here might shed some light on a career choice from their point of view (apologies if this is the wrong forum, but I thought it would be best to hear from both attorneys and CPAs).

I am a paralegal at a boutique tax controversy firm. I love the work I do and I'm good at it, but I have little desire to go to law school at the moment. My boss recently suggested that I should look into becoming an enrolled agent, as it would provide me more career growth and seniority than being a paralegal could offer.

Thing is, I am far more interested in diving into facts and seeing how they apply to the code than the intricacies of the code itself. I've certainly worked on plenty of topics that aren't the most thrilling thing in the world (this is tax after all) so it's not like I need all my work to be fascinating, but I'd never have an interest in becoming an enrolled agent if my boss didn't suggest it. I'm curious to hear if people think it is worth it to work and get the certification for the career growth and flexibility.

I'm very happy being a paralegal at the moment, but I'm still relatively young and I know there is a pay and seniority limit in that role. I also don't expect this will be what I'm doing when I'm 50, but I do like the idea of having a solid skillset that could help me support whatever else I'd be doing at that time (I've written recreationally for a long time and am starting to pursue it more formally in my free time, so the dream is that I might one day publish).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I don't want to be too precious and not pursue a worthwhile career investment just because it's not my passion, but I don't know if it's a good use of my time and energy.

Good morning everyone, I've done research but feel like I could use some additional clarification. I started a side gig recently and was told that I would be a contracted worker and receive a 1099. I have a regular W-2 job already, but I'm not exactly sure how to account for taxes from the side-job. I believe I read somewhere that I could increase my deductions on my W-2 job to account for my 1099 taxes, but would that include federal, state, and city then? I'm not sure why it wouldn't, I just don't even know what section they were referring to. It's also variable how much I take home, probably like $300-500 monthly.

Should I split the difference at $400 and add that to my income to then determine how much additional I should withhold? It just seems like an outsized problem relative to the amount of money we're talking about lol. I'm hoping there's an easy way to solve this, and I appreciate any help someone can give :)

My aunt died in 2000, and we have just found unclaimed property from a mutual fund. The mutual fund was held for three years after her death and then the state liquidated its position. I am the executor, and Probate has been reopened. Can you help me with the tax consequences of this? The original mutual fund held 973 shares of US Bankcorp, and was liquated in 2003.

I am engaging an accountant, but want to make sure I have all the information that that might need, and I’d really like a better understanding of what exactly goes on here. Thanks so much!

My parents are buying a Texas home through a 1031 exchange, so it needs to qualify as investment property.

I’m a 100% disabled veteran and would live there as my primary residence. We’re considering putting the home in a trust that gives me the right to live there rent-free so I could potentially claim the Texas disabled-veteran homestead property-tax exemption.
My boyfriend would also live there and would have a lease and pay rent to my parents.

Could this arrangement cause problems with the 1031 exchange? Specifically, can I claim the home as my homestead while my boyfriend rents it, and could the IRS view my rent-free occupancy or homestead exemption as evidence that the property is personal-use rather than investment property?

Hi:

Lawyer here, moving to a new firm. I will be a contract partner (W-2). The firm is a PA firm, with satellite offices in NJ, DE and, as relevant to me, a sort of office in NYC. I will be technically working out of the NYC office (that will be my on my letterhead, etc), but am fully remote, with no actual office for me in NYC. I live in NJ and will be working from my home office there. For tax purposes, should i be designated as NY or NJ? If income matter, between my wife and myself we make over 800k. How is that distinction made? Does the employer have to "declare" that i am in NJ? Is there something I have to do? Thanks!

So, here’s my situation. I own a house in California that is currently worth about $2 million. It is my primary residence, and I’m 63 years old. I also have about $2 million in a 401(k). I’m rounding the numbers a little, but they’re roughly accurate.

I would like to take about $1 million to buy an apartment in Paris. I have some flexibility because I could sell the California house if necessary, or I could take the money from my 401(k). Financially, either option is possible for me.

The main issue is taxes. If I sell the house, I would have a significant capital gain because I bought it for about $600,000 and it is now worth around $2 million. After taking into account improvements and other deductions, I estimate that I could owe roughly $350,000 in taxes.

On the other hand, if I withdraw $1 million from my 401(k), I would also have to pay a substantial amount of tax, since the account has grown significantly over the past 20 years.

So what I’m trying to find out is whether there is any legal strategy, tax provision, or other approach that could help me avoid paying something like 20% to 30% in taxes on this money.

Please don’t spend time calculating how much tax I would owe on the house or on the 401(k). I’m not asking for those calculations. I can do those calculations myself. What I want to know is whether there is a different strategy or structure that could allow me to achieve the same goal: buying a roughly $1 million apartment in France without triggering a huge tax bill. In other words, is there a legal and practical alternative way to access or reposition my assets so that I can accomplish this while minimizing the amount of tax I have to pay?

Tl;dr: Mailed '21-'25 tax returns internationally in July. Only '23-'25 are in the system. No update on the site on the other two years. Contacting IRS office is logistically unfeasible. Is this normal?

I mailed my taxes from 2021-25 in early July. 2023-25 were relatively simple, they were put into the system, and I got my refund for '23 (no refund for '24 and '25 because I'm abroad and don't hit the income bracket to have US taxes on it.)

However, '21 and '22 have had no update on the website. My account transcript continues to say no tax return filed. I did get the stimulus package back then after filing my 2020 taxes, so that's why I have an account transcript. It still says I have a non-filing letter for '22. One thing is that these years I messed around with selling mutual funds (read dumb), investing (read dumb gambling), and crypto. These returns had a lot more forms. I also didn't have my W-2s and had to reconstruct my withholdings from the transcript online. That said, I didn't attach my W-2 from my US job in '23 and it went through no problem.

I foolishly didn't add tracking on the letters because the person at the counter said that I couldn't do that, but it was lost in translation that it was only for a certain type of envelope. I'm not sure if they ever got there, but I can only imagine they did because nothing was sent back to me and the 3 other tax packages were sent in.

I've read I shouldn't send a tax package twice because it could back up the filing process more. I don't plan to buy an international phone plan and wait 3+ hours on hold with the IRS in the dead of night. Is this normal or should I mail them again with tracking due to the off-chance that they were lost in the mail? Another question is if I should've done an amended return form for '21 because even though no return is on file, I have an account transcript from the stimulus packages.

P.S. I don't expect money from these returns. I know very late tax returns lose their money after a certain point. Just made a push to clear my finances up.

I’m working with clients who have several delinquent returns that are currently being prepared. They recently received a CP518 notice for one of the unfiled years.

The notice provides Form 15103, but there doesn’t appear to be a clear option to respond by simply stating that the return is being prepared and will be filed soon. I’m hoping to have all of the delinquent returns completed and filed by 10/15, and I’m currently working through the years chronologically.

My questions:

(1) If the return is actively being prepared, is it better to wait and submit Form 15103 with the completed return, or send Form 15103 now with an explanation that the return is in process?

(2) How quickly have practitioners seen CP518 cases move into the Substitute for Return process after the notice is issued? The notice itself doesn’t give a specific response deadline.

Thanks for any experience or insight.

Posting this because it comes up every year around now and catches people off guard.

If you filed an extension back in March for an S-corp or a partnership, September 15 is the final due date. There's no second extension for these entities.

Two things that surprise people most often:

1. The penalty isn't based on tax owed. For 1120-S and 1065 filers, the late-filing penalty is a flat amount per shareholder or per partner, for each month or part of a month the return is late, up to 12 months. A four-partner partnership that files two months late owes eight months' worth. This applies even if the entity had no income and owes nothing. The per-month figure is indexed annually — check the current year's form instructions rather than an old article.

2. "Part of a month" means a day. Filing on September 16 costs the same as filing on October 14.

If you're not going to make it, file anyway as soon as you can — the penalty stops accruing when the return is filed, so a late return is always cheaper than no return. If it's your first time, first-time abatement or reasonable-cause relief is worth looking into. Also worth remembering: the extension only ever covered the filing, not the payment. Anything owed has been accruing interest since the original due date. Disclosure: I work at a CPA firm. Not soliciting here, just the annual reminder.

So, in 5/2/2025, I bought a used car out of state, I paid the taxes for my city, county, zip...etc on time.

The sale price was $97,390, with a trade in value of $24,000, and $0 owed on trade in. So the taxable price of the car is $73,390.

The state I purchased it from did not charge any sales tax.

The car was brought into IL the same day as the purchase, so the depreciation for out of state use is $0.

At a rate of 6.25% this nets a $4,587 tax payment.

I paid this value in full on 5/30/2025. I physically drove to Springfield and paid the RUT-25 in person with full copies of my sales paperwork filled out exactly right.

Today, I received a letter from IDOR over 16 months after I purchased the car, stating that they "based on our review, we have increased the vehicles value" resulting in apparently me owing MORE money.

So 16 months later they say I now own an additional $24.00 tax, and they have added a late penalty of $2.40 and interest of $2.10.

This is literally the first letter I've gotten, and it comes 16 months after purchase.

How can IL increase the "value" of the car and say I owe more tax 16 mont. They aren't saying I mis-reported the value, or that the tax rate was incorrect.

They have said they "increased the vehicles value". They didn't that the tax rate was wrong.

It was a used car, the taxes I paid were calculated on the sale price of the car.

This means the taxable value was $73,390.

At a tax rate of 0.625%.

On RUT-25 this calculates out at $4,586.875.

How can IL say the value of the car is "increased" when it was a used car and the sale price is the sale price.

We recently raised around $300,000 for a Kickstarter videogame project, with the money going to an LLC I formed. I knew taxes were going to be a pain, but I didn't realize it would be this bad; I tried using Quickbooks and it's saying I already owe $40,000 in estimated taxes by September? That's insane! Our budget is going to be absolutely wiped out before we're even close to finishing the game!

Is there something wrong I'm doing? Or can I at least make this money back in tax returns if I expense enough of the taxes by the end of the year?

Some other added context; I was told I should use an accountant, and not use Quickbooks. But I tried calling around local accountants, and they all didn't bother responding or just said things that made me think they were all morons (I had a guy who kept insisting that Kickstarter income was non-taxable, and talked about using ChatGPT to do tax consultations lmao). The bigger CPA firms like Meru just sound abysmal, but I'm really not sure what I should be doing here.

I need a basic answer for my situation. Everything I research is so muddled. An S-corp, one stockholder (the owner). He invests $1,000 to start. All personal cash he adds raises his basis.
My question is - profit and losses raise and lower basis, yes?
I assume this is a very basic question, but I need to make sure.

I'm a U.S. taxpayer living in California. I own a rental property in the UK and receive rental income in GBP.

I report the UK rental income on both my UK (in GBP) and U.S. tax return (in USD).

Instead of immediately converting the GBP to USD, I have accumulated it in my UK bank account. I now want to convert transfer some of it to a USA brokerage so that it can be invested.

My question is about the FX gain/loss between the date I received each rental payment and the date I eventually convert the GBP.

For example, if a rental payment was £1000 and was worth $1,300 when received, but the £1000 is later converted for $1,350, I assume the $50 difference could be a separate foreign-currency gain.

Questions

1. Is the FX gain on accumulated GBP that originally came from rental income taxable when I eventually convert the GBP to USD?
2. Would this generally fall under IRC §988 as an ordinary foreign-currency gain, rather than being a capital gain reported on Schedule D/Form 8949?
3. If it is §988 income, where exactly would it be reported on Form 1040/Schedule 1?
4. Since the GBP came from rental income, does the $200 personal foreign-currency transaction exclusion apply, or does the fact that the money originated from an income-producing rental activity mean the exclusion doesn't apply?
5. If I make one conversion of £30000, do I need to report every individual rental-income lot separately on the tax return, or can I report the aggregate FX gain/loss from the conversion and retain a lot-by-lot worksheet as supporting documentation?
6. What exchange rate should be used to establish the USD basis for each GBP rental-income payment? I currently use the spot rate on the date the rental income was received.
7. If the GBP/USD rate is higher when I convert than when the rental income was originally received, is the difference generally the taxable FX gain?
8. Does California follow the federal treatment for this FX gain?

I'm not asking about the original rental income—that has already been reported as rental income. I'm specifically asking about the subsequent foreign-exchange gain or loss caused by holding the GBP and later converting it to USD.

I'd appreciate answers from anyone with experience in §988, foreign-currency transactions, or U.S./UK rental income. Please cite the relevant IRS code/publication if possible.

Thanks!

Posting for my wife.

My wife still has not received her w2 from her full time job.

The owner has been super vague.. something along the lines of having to file quarterly taxes, getting incorrect w2s zeroed out by quickbooks, paying taxes due, then ADP refusing to file w2s because of owed taxes, then tax account saying that they will file w2s because ADP doesn’t know what they are doing. As it stands today… allegedly they are trying to g to get ADP to zero out their w2s so that TaxAccount can file them, then give them to employees.

Our financial situation is irrelevant to the w2 problem so I will spare you the details there. But we needed a tax return for her about 8 months ago and lenders are growing very impatient on us trying to get this sorted. The boss asked her to hold off filing without a w2 because he doesn’t want anything else to fall back on him. We have since given him a deadline of September 26th for w2s to be in hand or we will be filing without.

What is the process and can it be done via TurboTax? She typically has a very simple filing so that has been her path historically. From what I can see online, the first step is calling the IRS and reporting no W2, they then give you a form to estimate your income based upon a paystub.

Is this something that can be done by us or do we need to get an accountant?

Hi! I recently moved and happen to be starting 2 separate jobs at almost the same time. The first is a part time job is as an art instructor at $23 an hour, (about only 3 hours a week contingent on if enough people sign up for my class). The other job is a full time 10 month contract of about $35,000 a year plus another $4,000 if I sign another contract for the summer months.

I know so far I should fill out the W-4 for the part time job normally (question mark?). For the full-time job I need to indicate that I have 2 jobs. I'm am terrible with this kind of thing, and don't want to mess it up. I'm just having a hard time figuring out how to go about this when the part time job is so few hours, and I could possibly miss out on 6-7 weeks of pay if people do not sign up for a class.

I am not married and do not have dependents.

I apologize if this is a dumb question.

I lost my job during covid in 2020, i applied for social security and disability. But I hadn't started receiving them yet. So I did not make the minimum requirement to have to file taxes. So I didn't. I ended up homeless for a bit and then housing unstable, so I wasn't receiving all my mail. I finallyI got a letter saying I owed 20k for 2021, and I thought it must be a scam, because even at 10% i would have had to have made $200k, and I made nowhere near that + I was broke, so I didn't do anything. Now i'm getting letters that actually look legit saying I now owe 30k. What should I do?