Tax confusion

[lovbyts]

Actually TurboTax does make suggestions such as to modify your w4 withholding so you get more back each paycheck if you are getting back to much of a refund.

It also make suggestions such as putting money into an IRA and lets you see how much more you will get back. By putting $2500 into an IRA a few years ago I got back $1800 more on my refund.

[Times Roman]

those "suggestions" are more common sense than anything else. I'm talking about if your kid is in college and only going part time, and you have another kid getting ready to go to college, is it better to take the hope credit now or to wait until later. (you can only take claim it for two years total). Or if you have a business with assets, is it better to retain certain real assets within the business, or is it better to create a new "business", such a schedule E type, shift the real assets to this new "business" and then rent the property back to your schedule C business. This is called income recharacterization, and is a common strategy to avoid paying SS tax (16%). Reason is that Schedule E income is considered passive and is therefore not subject to the same taxes as you would expect with a more active income as you would expect with either 1120 income or schedule C income.

Show me a turbo tax program that can talk to you on this level, and i'll eat my hat....

Actually TurboTax does make suggestions such as to modify your w4 withholding so you get more back each paycheck if you are getting back to much of a refund.

It also make suggestions such as putting more eyes into an IRA and lets you see how much more you will get back. By putting $2500 into an IRA a few years ago I got back $1800 more on my refund.

[Times Roman]

Actually TurboTax does make suggestions such as to modify your w4 withholding so you get more back each paycheck if you are getting back to much of a refund.

It also make suggestions such as putting money into an IRA and lets you see how much more you will get back. By putting $2500 into an IRA a few years ago I got back $1800 more on my refund.

That would put you at over 70% tax rate on your highest earnings level. Are you sure about that, LB? Or are you talking about back in the '60's (old man!)