Drew Thomas 0:12
All right. So, we're looking at, we're looking ahead and we're looking at things that are coming up soon. And things that are coming up soon include things like St. Patrick's Day, and Easter and Tax Day. Yeah, Tax Day. It's good stuff. With me, of course, is Jeff Matevish. Hi, Jeff. Hello. Going to talk a little bit about taxes today. And Tax Day is April 15th this year, in 2024. Tax Day can change slightly depending on whether or not you're hitting a weekend or a holiday or something like that. But you said you looked it up? It is, it is actually April 15th this year. It is yeah. We thought, we thought we'd sit down and talk a little bit about taxes, what you, and just, we're going to do a general overview of just things you might need to do your taxes, things you want to have on hand, where you might go, how you might go about it. Just like any other thing that we do on the show, we are not endorsing any one particular service or software or anything, because we briefly discussed the idea of trying to modify some of these names to avoid... we're going to confuse ourselves. So, yeah, we're gonna confuse ourselves and we're going to confuse you. So, we're gonna throw some names out there, but please understand we're not endorsing any one of these. We're just giving you options. Yeah. And telling you what's out there and things like that. So, so let me ask you, let's start with, do you do your own taxes? Or do you use like a tax preparer? Or do you use software? How do you do taxes?
Jeff Matevish 1:35
Yeah, I don't do my own taxes. I pay somebody for that. Okay. Used to use an accountant. Now, I'm, I think I'm gonna go to one of these just brick and mortar places that only do taxes.
Drew Thomas 1:46
Gotcha. So, like one of the ones that have like the little curtained kiosk, like in like the, like Walmart or something. I always see those that I think to myself, like, I don't know that I would want to just sit there behind the shower curtain in Walmart and have somebody do my taxes now, but I don't know. I guess it works. Yeah. You know, or they wouldn't keep doing this.
Jeff Matevish 2:04
I mean, this is also the first time filing jointly. Oh, yeah congratulations. Yeah, thank you. I had my own accountant. She had her own accountant. And we're kind of hitting a neutral territory. Yeah, let's go somewhere else, you know, yeah. What? Do you do your own taxes? Or do you have someone do them?
Drew Thomas 2:19
I mean, I do my own taxes, but I don't do my own taxes. Like I use a tax software. Okay. Right. So, so I mean, there's different ones out there. There's, I mean, again, we're gonna drop a few names. There's TurboTax. There's Quicken. There's FreeTaxUSA online, there's, I think you can even do it through irs.gov. But that's a little more involved, though. I think you're actually like, you have to pick the right form and fill everything out. And you know, but it doesn't cost anything, then I guess. I don't think you have to; I don't think it would cost you to file but I wouldn't want that stress. Yeah, I don't think I would, I kind of like the idea of the software sort of walking you through it. And there's different ones, I think even the H&R Block people have, I think they started advertising a software now too.
Jeff Matevish 3:00
Yeah, they have three different ways you can do it. You can either use their software, upload your files directly to them, you can have a quick 15-minute talk with them and hand your files off or you can have a one-on-one and, and sit there while they do your taxes for you. So, yeah, they're pretty flexible.
Drew Thomas 3:17
I saw the, there was a commercial on TV, I think for, I think, I think it was for TurboTax. And the whole, the whole concept was, you know that they have tax preparers, right, that can, they can help you through some of this stuff? And they had a person mountain climbing and they're like, look, they're doing their taxes, you know, and then they had a person like waterskiing. They're like, oh, look, they're doing their taxes. The funny thing was, if you read the fine print at the bottom, it actually says you must be present with your preparer in order for them to do taxes. So, while technically you're not doing your taxes, you still kind of have to be there. You can't be waterskiing. And then like you know, unless they're, unless the taxpayer is with you on the waterski.
Jeff Matevish 3:57
No, they're just saying, you know, we'll speed this process up so you can go waterskiing. Yeah, you know.
Drew Thomas 4:02
Yeah, yeah, I thought that, but you know, so I do that, I do that, in fact, I did do my taxes over the weekend. And they kept prompting me throughout, [are] you sure you don't want a professional tax preparer to look at this and that sort of thing that I just kept saying, no, I'm good, you know. And the software has done, you know, well for me over the years, you know, but, but I totally get where you're coming from too to having a professional do it because you want to make sure that you get that stuff done, right. Yeah. So, I have no headache then. Yeah, yeah. So, what do you do you just collect all of your documentation? Yeah, that to them. Yep.
Jeff Matevish 4:34
W-2s and any 1099s.
Drew Thomas 4:37
Yeah, yeah. So, a couple of so, let's, let's talk a little bit about that. So, what kind of stuff do you need to have to kind of do your taxes? I mean, you're gonna have to have your, your personal information, right? You're gonna have to provide your social security number, you're gonna have to provide a, like a, most likely like, you can actually, a lot of these softwares anymore will import like your W-2s and things like that from your employer if you provide the employers info automation. So, you can do that. That helps avoid some mis keying of numbers and things like that. Because yeah, import it for you. But some of the other documents you want to have handy if we're talking, before we go too far into this, we should say, we're talking how we would imagine most people would be doing their taxes, which is that you work for someone else. If you're a self-employed person, you're probably paying your taxes a little bit differently, even though you have to file a tax return, you're probably paying your taxes quarterly or something along those lines. But if you're retired, if you're you know, I mean, there are exceptions to this, but we're talking about the, the general schmoes like us that work for a company now and what you probably want to have. So, so a W-2 from your employer, right 1099 form for any contract work you may have completed or interest you might have earned on like a contest, or a sweepstakes or some sort of something like that, interest you may have earned from a CD or a time deposit, an IRA, that sort of thing. You want to make sure that you have handy any income that you may have gotten from unemployment or Social Security benefits, income from previous years state and local tax returns, which I don't know what that would exactly be. They always ask me that every year, do you want to apply your return to next year's taxes? And I'm always like, no.
Jeff Matevish 6:17
Give me the money now. Yeah.
Drew Thomas 6:19
But if you, like if you own rental properties, right, and then things like, you know, I guess it depends on whether you're doing itemized or itemized deductions or not. But there if you're doing itemized deductions, things like you know, charitable donations, moving expenses, job search expenses, insurance claims from federally declared disasters. So, there's I mean, there's all kinds of different paperwork out there. But I would, I would probably assume that most people are going to have, what did you say? Oh, 1098? Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Matevish 6:20
If you're going to school, if you have, yeah, student loans, or you paid tuition, I mean, that goes towards your taxes, too, so...
Drew Thomas 6:54
Yeah, tuition or else, even if you're out of school, and you're paying your loans off the interest that you have paid on your student loans, you can, you can put that on there as a deduction. So, things like that, that you want to have, that want to have handy. Some other things that may apply to some people, things like contributions to medical savings accounts, IRA contributions are a big deal. And you can usually contribute to an IRA, they usually tell you, when you can stop contributing to last year's IRA, it's usually after the first of the calendar year. So, you may still, depending on, depending on when you're listening to this, you may or may not still be able to contribute to last year's IRA, the interest from investments, stocks or other properties, costs related to childcare, education, which we just talked about, homeownership. So, mortgage interest, property taxes, energy saving improvements, but the thing of it is, you have to have a lot of itemized deductions to get past what the standard deduction is, right? So, if you're only doing maybe your property tax, and two other things, chances are, you're still going to be told that the standard deduction is bigger than what you can write off. But I mean, just things to keep in mind. So, yeah, so and, so after going through that laundry list of stuff, I can understand, again, why you might want to just have somebody else do this for you.
Jeff Matevish 8:11
And a good thing to do, too, is you know, if you're trying to figure out what documents you need, look at your last year's return, you know, maybe you have, maybe you have, at least I keep all of my, my returns. And I know what I gave my tax prepper, the year before. So, I kind of match those documents up.
Drew Thomas 8:27
Yeah, yeah. And when it comes to those documents too, the bank, or the mortgage provider, or the student loan servicer, they're all responsible for getting those forms. So, if you are owed a 1099, a 1098, or any of those other kinds of things, if you have investments, if you have a you know, a 1099-DIV or INT or something, the, your, your, the organization that you're through, they have to give you that stuff. So, make sure that you're, if you're, if you're missing your W-2, talk to your employer, yeah, if you're missing your 1099 or whatever it is, make sure you're talking to whoever was supposed to give it to you, because you can't just generate those. Yeah, so make sure you have those. So, let's talk a little bit about refund versus payment. So, have you ever had to, have you ever owed on your taxes? I know that's a personal question, but I'm just curious.
Jeff Matevish 9:17
You know, not that, not that I can think of. Yeah, I can't remember any, any, any year that I had to pay anything back. How about you?
Drew Thomas 9:23
No, I can't think of any time I had to owe, but so when you get when, again we're talking about being employed, when you get hired your human resources person, manager, whoever is probably gonna have you fill out a W-4 and the W-4 you tell them how much you want to have deducted you know, on your taxes and if you put down like a zero, they're going to take out the most they possibly can for your federal and state taxes with the idea being that hopefully you won't owe anything. Yeah, right. You put down a one or a two, you're gonna have less taxes taken out, but you got to be careful you, you want to make sure that you don't put the number up too high, because you're gonna get more in your paycheck, but then you may owe at the end of the year right taxes.
Jeff Matevish 9:28
Gotta find that happy medium. Do you want to run yourself short now or? Yeah,
Drew Thomas 9:58
I mean, the ultimate goal would be to be at zero. Right, right, because you don't want to loan the government money with, without interest. But at the same time, you don't want to owe the government money either. Yeah. So, ideally, you'd want to be at zero whenever your taxes come around, but a lot of us like getting that little windfall. Yeah, exactly. You know, and I'd rather be safe than sorry, personally. Yeah.
Jeff Matevish 10:30
I don't want a big surprise at the end saying, hey, you owe a large chunk of change.
Drew Thomas 10:34
Yeah, yeah. So, how do you get your, so how do you normally get yours back? Do you get a check? Do you get direct deposit?
Jeff Matevish 10:38
I used to get a check. Yeah, but starting probably, I don't know, a few years back, it was direct deposit. Yeah, yeah.
Drew Thomas 10:45
I think most, most of the what they say is, you know, if you, if you're trying to get your, your, your money back relatively quickly, direct deposit is the way to go. I think they will still cut you a check, but you're gonna wait a lot longer, I would have to think.
Jeff Matevish 10:58
Okay, I didn't even have that option. It was my accountant said, hey, I just need to an account number and a routing number. So yeah.
Drew Thomas 11:04
And that's a good point, you want to make sure you're giving, you're not messing those things up. Or if you're, if you're putting in a routing number and account number, make sure it's the right one so that your deposit doesn't get deposited to the wrong account. And those are found at the bottom of your checks. Yes, they are at the bottom of your check. So, your routing number and your account number would be at the bottom of each check that is true. You can usually reach out to your bank too, they'll, they'll tell you what their routing number is and your account number. Normally, it's on your statement, too. I think it's I think it's in the clear on your statement. If you, if you look, they'll have the whole, because a lot of times your account numbers like, it will be like star, star, star and then like maybe the last four digits. But I think if you actually look at your statement, you know, show the full account number. So, make sure you're giving that, that correct information, before that. I was reading too, the IRS is preparing for more than 146 million individual tax returns this season. Wow. That's a lot. Yeah. I mean, that's a lot. So, I guess the sooner you do it, maybe the faster you'll get because everybody's gonna wait till the 15th of April and then you're gonna wait longer. But that's a lot. That's a lot of work. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't know anybody who works for the IRS. I never have. I don't either. I don't envy them.
Jeff Matevish 11:04
No, because I would, I would hope that a lot of that's automated now. Yeah.
Drew Thomas 12:15
Yeah, but I mean, when you tell [someone], I mean, that's gotta be a downer at parties. Oh, what do you do I work for the IRS. I feel bad i mean, if you're, if you work for the IRS, I mean, I maybe I'm wrong, but that just feels like that's something that most people would be like, oh, hey, well, like I gotta go refill my drink. Yeah. So, yeah, best way to get your refund fast probably to do direct deposit, I was presented with an option whenever I did mine over the weekend, where if I wanted my refund faster, they were offering me a 0% interest loan with no fees, supposedly, that they would give me, they would basically give me my tax return, and then when I got my tax return, I was supposed to pay off the loan. But that just feels like more work. Because I was reading the average says that if you're doing direct deposit, the IRS says that you should expect your refund within about 21 days, from the day your your return is accepted. Okay. So, I mean...
Jeff Matevish 13:10
I guess if you're hurting for money, maybe but yeah, yeah. I don't know if I'd trust that either.
Drew Thomas 13:17
I don't know. I just feel like I would try to wait the 21 days. Yeah, and not have to worry about the extra rigmarole of another loan, because I don't know this, but I would have to think that that loan is then going to ping your credit report and all that kind of stuff, too. Because you're taking out a loan. Yeah. So, that's something to think about. If you don't want somebody hitting your credit report for a loan that you're like, a temporary, like, not even three weeks basically loan. I don't know how that would go.
Jeff Matevish 13:41
Yeah. But well, then you had mentioned before we started this conversation that you used to be able to get, what, prepaid cards for a tax return?
Drew Thomas 13:52
Yeah, I think they did that for a while. And I don't know if they still do, but if they do, there's fees associated with those kinds of things, too. Okay. Prepaid cards are very convenient for people who may not have a bank account, per se. But the disadvantage to those is that unless you're going to a store and swiping that card, like you would a debit card or a credit card, there's probably fees. So, you can't take it to an ATM and get your money off of that without paying a fee. Okay, you can't use it sometimes online without a fee, you can't... So, I would steer away from prepaid cards if you, if you can. This is also a really great time if you don't have a checking account or bank account to talk to a bank that you trust that maybe your family uses or friends use, you know, see if you can open up a bank account because it would be a lot faster to have that stuff direct deposit, and then you're right, you got that advantage but and even cashing the check sometimes it's hard if you don't have a bank.
Jeff Matevish 14:45
Yeah, well, you know, a lot of places won't do that at all. Yeah, at all.
Drew Thomas 14:48
So, yeah, so my taxes are done. Yours aren't. So, you get to...
Jeff Matevish 14:54
I have everything lined up. I'm all ready for it.
Drew Thomas 14:56
That's good. You got all of your documents that I just rattled off a little bit ago?
Jeff Matevish 14:57
Yep, yep, yep, I got my wife's documents, got my documents. I just got to make that call.
Drew Thomas 15:04
That's awesome. All right, well, happy Tax Day.
Jeff Matevish 15:07
Yeah, you too.
Drew and Jeff 15:08
All right. We'll talk to you later. All right, sounds good.
Drew Thomas 15:20
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Drew Thomas 16:27
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