I tell people that I have to "adult" this summer. Because that's more fun to say than: I have to save my money because I owe the IRS back taxes and it's due at the end of the summer. So, instead I say something cute and kind of trendy.
But how did this happen? How is it that I owe back taxes? I'm a single school teacher who rents.
Oh yeah, it's cause I thought some people knew what they were talking about!
Have you ever met someone who spoke with such conviction & authority that you had an instant respect for them......only to find out later that they had absolutely no idea what they were talking about?
Yeah, that's annoying. But thankfully, I am starting to not fall for that.
Back when I was filing my 2012 taxes, I was doing them myself. Now, I was still living & teaching in Alaska at that point and I couldn't take my taxes over to a professional to have them done.
My taxes are pretty straight forward anyways. But there was one thing that was tricky.
Since I had no say in where I lived in Akiak (the school district was my landlord and determined what house I stayed at AND who I lived with) I fell under the category of "Forced Housing". Which meant that my rent was tax deductible.
Yay, right? Except that it's a pretty rare occurrence and not handy on any tax form. So I asked other teachers where they had put in the rent amount.
They said, "Oh, you just do _______________." (I'm NOT posting what they said.)
I asked, "Really? That's it?"
I was told by several people, "I've done that for years and never had a problem." Then they looked at me like I was stupid for even questioning if they were correct.
Okay, so that's what I did. I submitted my taxes and everything was fine. Who was I to question those smarter than me?
The next two returns, I went to a professional and everything was fine.
Except, a few months ago, I received a letter saying that my 2012 taxes were wrong and I owed thousands of dollars.
And I saw on Facebook that many of my Alaskan friends had received similar letters.
To quote Lord of the Rings: ....but they were all of them deceived...
Okay, that was a bit dramatic. But bottom line: the advice didn't come from a tax expert. And it was bad advice.
I wrote the IRS and told them why I didn't owe them thousands of dollars.
And they agreed.....for the most part. They say I still owe $700.
Could I fight it? Maybe. I could hire a tax attorney. I could go to a professional. Or I can be grateful that it's no longer thousands of dollars and just pay it.
And that's what I have decided to do. Chalk it up to the next time I want tax advice, you'd better be a professional.
Although, part of me wants to submit a bill to the people who gave me the advice....but one of them is in jail waiting trial for abusing his adopted children, so I don't really want his money anyways.
My advice: there's a lot of bad advice out there, and if someone has to put you down to prove their point, maybe it's not the best advice after all.
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