Tax Season

DAD BOT 3000 running taxfrustration.exe………………

Ok, all set.

This is going to be our year for a big return! I can feel it ya know. I mean after the not-so-great year, or three, most of us had it just has to be the year!

It all started when my wife and I were watching the local news channel waiting for our favorite weatherman to tell us some good snow news. Which….he did not tell us good snow news. Either way, though he got his five minutes in talking about freezing temperatures and rain coming.

The camera switched back to one of the main anchors who had a little three-minute fluff piece on how tax season is here and if you want your return (emphasizing the word return) you should file as soon as possible and electronically.

Great idea!

My wife and I immediately jump onto the myPay Web Site (dfas.mil) to gather our W-2 forms our 1095 and 1099-R forms. If you are not familiar this is where Government employees and Retiree’s see their monthly paychecks and get copies of documents needed for taxes.

I fire up my trustee HP Spectre laptop and hit the quick link button. The page loaded in record time and my username and password was saved ready for me to begin the adventure. I smash the login button and….

ERROR. YOUR ACCOUNT HAS BEEN LOCKED. PLEASE CONTACT DFAS DURING NORMAL BUSINESS HOURS FOR ASSISTANCE.

Well crap. My DFAS account has been locked out for some reason. Great, just great. Strong start Dad Bot 3000…real strong.

DAD BOT 3000 LOADING FRUSTRATION.EXE

Little did I know this would be the first of a few snags in this journey.

Although we hit a snag Dad Bot can multitask…..sometimes. While this is happening I am jumping into our USAA accounts to get out 1099 for our savings accounts my wife gets her documents from Liberty University.

The next morning we wake up, get our little girl ready and off to school, eat a nice breakfast, and down some coffee. I pick up my phone and think:

“This will be an easy quick call”

ERROR

I was on hold with DFAS for almost 40 minutes at 0830 in the morning. I finally get through to a wonderful person named Jasmine….or something like that. After providing her with my SSN, login name, and address she sent me a code to unlock my account to my registered email address.

Great! Progress right? Nope, no progress. For some reason, my registered email address was still my official army email address. Which was deleted and replaced a year ago when I retired. Simple fix she said. Just verify the following information and I can update it for you:

1. Full name

2. Date of birth

3. Social security number

4. DOD ID number

5. Address

6. Email address on file

7. Date of retirement

8. Basic active service date for my military career

9. Branch of service

10. Rank at retirement

That was a lot of information. Bt it worked out and everything was fixed and updated. I was able to download my required tax forms! Win

CLOSING FRUSTRATION.EXE PROGRAM

Off to preparing a tax return form! So we have been using TurboTax for the past….decade or so. It works great for our financial situation. However, it is not a one-stop shop and I know people have their preferences. Use what you want to use and feel comfortable with. Just in case you need some additional resources or places for taxes here is a shortlist of recommendations. Check them out.

• Turbo tax

• H&R block

• TaxAct

• Tax slayer

• certified public accountants

• or jimmy from next door

Whatever floats your financial boat.

We like Turbo tax because it automates a lot of things for you with simple questions, step-by-step preparation instructions, and extra help if you need it. Our favorite part of TurboTax though is seeing those return numbers go up and up at the top of the screen. Gives us a warm and fuzzy.

DAD BOT 3000 LOADING EXCITEMENT.EXE

Time to do this! I jump onto our turbo tax and import all the data and administrative information automatically. Boom too easy. This year I tried to upload our W-2 and 1099’s as a pdf. It worked! Was not expecting it to be this easy!

And magically, as if the tax Gods were smiling down on us we saw our federal return skyrocket to $2000…..$4000….$8562! Wow, we paid extra in taxes and are getting that money back! Immediately my head started spinning with ideas of what to sue that money on. I could pay a huge chunk of my truck down! We could add half to our daughter's college fund and the other half into the stock market! With$4000 we could get a small portion of real estate investment trusts, or REITs. Collect that monthly dividend payment and start investing. We could go on vacation (just the two of us)

DAD BOT 3000 LOADING FANTASY VACATION VIDEO ON REPEAT

Now that would be the life. Sand in our toes, Margareta's in our hand. My beautiful wife and I relaxing on the beach for a week or more! Let’s run the federal review check just to make sure

ERROR….PLEASE INPUT HOW MUCH CHILD TAX CREDIT AND STIMULUS CHECK #3 INTO THESE AREA’S.

Cheese and biscuits. We received three child tax credit payments before we were able to shut that off and we received an economic stimulus check in March. This is bad.

DAD BOT 300 double-checked the exact payments with the IRS. Please do this, it will greatly hold up any return you may be getting from the IRS and possibly get you audited. In case you need the information for yourself follow this link:

https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/economic-impact-payments

https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/child-tax-credit-update-portal

We put in the amount we received for child tax credit and the economic impact into turbo tax. That estimated return of ….$8562 skyrocketed down to just over$4000. Now don’t get me wrong that is still an amazing return. In my head, though as those numbers slowly went farther and farther down…………….

DAD BOT 3000…..Deleting truckpayment.exe

DAD BOT 3000….Deleting REIT purchase.exe

DAD BOT 3000…..Deleting tropical beach vacation.exe

DAD BOT 3000….loading FRUSTRATION.exe

My wife double-checked everything. Which is smart I think as Dad Bot 3000 does make mistakes. She is probably more qualified anyway since she works on the budget at the Army level. Unfortunately, Dad Bot 3000 did not make a mistake. The numbers were correct. Numbers don’t lie…usually.

At the end of the day, we are happy with any return we get from tax season. Maybe Dad Bot 3000 should not have loaded the fantasy vacation video on repeat in the background. No matter though. We got our taxes down, we are getting a return and we are saving for our daughter's college tuition. If you read this please, dear lord please, check the official child tax credit and economic stimulus payment information on the IRS website. And DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT load the fantasy video on playback in the background of your mind before taxes are final.

Dad Bot 3000 Logging off……