I love credit cards so much! v2.0 (see first page for add'l details)

[calypso726]

Guys...if I start talking about justifying HUGE Annual Fees...our world will have flipped upside down!

And if I start spouting cash is king in reference to my new strategy and wanting an Amex MR Schwab cash out ... then @SouthFayetteFan and I have been transplanted into our own real life Trading Places/Freaky Friday movie. My goodness, Mrs. Southfayettefan and @PlanePrincess wont know what hit them.

Oh and thanks. Now I’m singing “the world turned upside down” in my head. Not that I mind Hamilton lyrics in my head on loop.

 

[shairpdrh]

I really enjoy doing my taxes believe it or not. I used to do them by paper forms and then online fillable forms completely by hand (even in years that we had Self-Employment income and the like). Given my strange and analytical nature, enjoying reading tax laws probably doesn't surprise you guys, LOL

My husband and I both like doing taxes...just not at the same time. He ended up being the one to do them and I miss it.

 

[palhockeymomof2]

We're still going to be able to itemize and probably won't need to alternate. We'll see. I'm 99% sure we get to pay more taxes this year after the tax change over last. We're in that weird, super special group I guess.

We are going to be paying more too...Living in NY our state income and property taxes are so high and we can only claim 10k

 

[hsmamato2]

Ugg. LAst month we drove up to BOS - our car already has EzpassMA transponder..... so then we get bill in the mail for toll by plate for another persons tolls.... (dates don't even match when we were driving up!)so far I've gotten two bills and the total is up to 8.xx......
The plate is nothing like our plate, altho I can see it's the same state.... I foresee a lot of issues here- my DH says to just pay it and be done, but I'm concerned about future unpaid stuff being thrown at me if I do.... When I check my ezpass acct- it doesn't show this activity at all. any advice? I'm more than a little concerned about the lack of help for stuff like this.... maybe I can call my state DMv to find out anything?

 

[Happy814]

Whew I have been reading off and on all morning trying to play catch up! This is a crazy busy time for me. I put tax packets together and most of my clients have to file by March 1. Plus I have W2s and 1099s to get out and financial statements to prepare! So needless to say, it's been hard to keep up. I am loving the new thread!

So I read on DoC that the Arrival+ has a higher than usual bonus? Seems like a pretty good return on the spend, plus decent ongoing benefits. I'm thinking of holding off on the BCP and trying for this. Of course, I still have to apply for the SW Biz to get my companion pass. Could I apply for the SW Biz and Arrival+ on the same day? For reference:

08/24 CIP
11/28 SW Pers

Also, I'm booking a long weekend trip for my DH and my FIL in February to go to Vegas, the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. My FIL is retiring and DH wants to do something special for him. Flights and hotels will be paid for with URs!

 

[hsmamato2]

You can combine your personal accounts into your business account. i have that setup currently to make life a little easier for me. i then use my personal ones for like chase pay and etc.
Weird that it didnt mention anything about 80k. Chase doesnt really deny bonuses like amex does, send SM a message confirming your 80k would work too if that makes u feel better. :]

I've never found it necessary to SM about an offer that's a straight up general offer.... is this necessary?(asking for myself) Also I thought I'd read there are negatives to combining perosnal and biz acct pages with Chase? or did I get that wrong?

 

[Alexle2007]

I really enjoy doing my taxes believe it or not. I used to do them by paper forms and then online fillable forms completely by hand (even in years that we had Self-Employment income and the like). Given my strange and analytical nature, enjoying reading tax laws probably doesn't surprise you guys, LOL

I enjoy doing ours, my mom’s and sometimes my sister’s. It’s the only time I actually get to use my accounting degree since I went the IT route instead. DH and his wash sales...

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

We're still going to be able to itemize and probably won't need to alternate. We'll see. I'm 99% sure we get to pay more taxes this year after the tax change over last. We're in that weird, super special group I guess.

I'm only playing the game because have about $15k in deductions I can move the timing on. It looks like I can probably save $1,700 over the course of 2 years by doing it and I hate giving the gov't more money than I have to, LOL.

 

[elgerber]

I really enjoy doing my taxes believe it or not. I used to do them by paper forms and then online fillable forms completely by hand (even in years that we had Self-Employment income and the like). Given my strange and analytical nature, enjoying reading tax laws probably doesn't surprise you guys, LOL

I am shocked!!

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Tax Update...It looks like KeyBank will pay for more complicated versions of TaxAct if you agree to share some info with them (probably means I'll get a call about "invest with us" or something like that). I already have an account with them so I may just take advantage of that for free. Tax Act feels a lot like the Turbo Tax interface.

AND Tax Act came to within $2 of my spreadsheet as well (rounding errors) so I can also say they did my taxes correctly Once I have the last few forms, I probably will give them my business this year. (And yes, I just entered all my tax info 3 times in the past 10 hours...twice last night on TurboTax and once this morning on TaxAct - I'm a glutton for punishment LOL)

 

[palhockeymomof2]

Whew I have been reading off and on all morning trying to play catch up! This is a crazy busy time for me. I put tax packets together and most of my clients have to file by March 1. Plus I have W2s and 1099s to get out and financial statements to prepare! So needless to say, it's been hard to keep up. I am loving the new thread!

So I read on DoC that the Arrival+ has a higher than usual bonus? Seems like a pretty good return on the spend, plus decent ongoing benefits. I'm thinking of holding off on the BCP and trying for this. Of course, I still have to apply for the SW Biz to get my companion pass. Could I apply for the SW Biz and Arrival+ on the same day? For reference:

08/24 CIP
11/28 SW Pers

Also, I'm booking a long weekend trip for my DH and my FIL in February to go to Vegas, the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. My FIL is retiring and DH wants to do something special for him. Flights and hotels will be paid for with URs!

Your almost 2 months from your last chase application so I think you’d be ok with the SW business...assuming CLs are ok. Not familiar with Arrival + rules....but I’m sure someone who is will advise

 

[GusGus16]

All this talk about taxes, I like doing them, I use the free fillable forms online. Like @SouthFayetteFan I'm going to try and itemize every other year from now on...and this year hold on charitable contributions and property taxes until after the 1st of the year...we will see how that works out I need to run a couple more calcs on it but it should be some tax savings. I've only received two tax forms in the mail, so waiting to even start my taxes, typically by now I'm very close to filing. I like to have taxes done as early as I can. This year is a little different I have multiple bank bonuses/interest that I need to make sure to account for.

 

[georgina]

Tax Update...It looks like KeyBank will pay for more complicated versions of TaxAct if you agree to share some info with them (probably means I'll get a call about "invest with us" or something like that). I already have an account with them so I may just take advantage of that for free. Tax Act feels a lot like the Turbo Tax interface.

AND Tax Act came to within $2 of my spreadsheet as well (rounding errors) so I can also say they did my taxes correctly Once I have the last few forms, I probably will give them my business this year. (And yes, I just entered all my tax info 3 times in the past 10 hours...twice last night on TurboTax and once this morning on TaxAct - I'm a glutton for punishment LOL)

I opened a Key Bank account last year for the $400 bonus and got that email also. No way am I giving them my info though just to use free Tax Act. I'm not giving out any more personal information than I have to.

We moved a lot of accounts around this year so I won't have all my forms until mid-Feb. I will bide my time by doing my DS's and helping DD with hers. I will be itemizing because with DH retired our income is lower and our medical expenses went up. Plus I gave most of my charitable deductions for 2019 in December. (Was mad I didn't have a new credit card to put them on for a bonus!)

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

All this talk about taxes, I like doing them, I use the free fillable forms online. Like @SouthFayetteFan I'm going to try and itemize every other year from now on...and this year hold on charitable contributions and property taxes until after the 1st of the year...we will see how that works out I need to run a couple more calcs on it but it should be some tax savings. I've only received two tax forms in the mail, so waiting to even start my taxes, typically by now I'm very close to filing. I like to have taxes done as early as I can. This year is a little different I have multiple bank bonuses/interest that I need to make sure to account for.

Hey - glad to see somebody else validating my alternating years strategy!

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I opened a Key Bank account last year for the $400 bonus and got that email also. No way am I giving them my info though just to use free Tax Act. I'm not giving out any more personal information than I have to.

We moved a lot of accounts around this year so I won't have all my forms until mid-Feb. I will bide my time by doing my DS's and helping DD with hers. I will be itemizing because with DH retired our income is lower and our medical expenses went up. Plus I gave most of my charitable deductions for 2019 in December. (Was mad I didn't have a new credit card to put them on for a bonus!)

I figure with all the credit card applications and bank accounts I do, there isn't much else that a bank could learn about me from my tax returns lol. It's not very complicated and I already told them how much money I made when I applied for things.

 

[elgerber]

I was looking at my MR accounts on Amex and I am not seeing any place to generate a support link for myself/spouse. Are they hiding them somewhere, or am I blind? Or are they missing?

 

[jhoannam]

I was involved in a discussion awhile back on r/churning about this and it was so strange. Basically there's people who have gotten burned or are worried about getting burned AND there are people that think it's overblown.

I said I was pretty much done with AMEX and people were frying me for it. "You've never been denied" / "You're going to avoid them because there's a chance they may deny you a bonus" / "You're not going to risk spending $5k over the small chance you won't get a bonus" etc...

Do these people think money grows on trees??? $5k of spend for me (the Schwab Plat MSR) should be worth a minimum of $500. And that's 20%+ of the annual spend I have to devote to sign-up bonuses. So YES I will avoid AMEX because I'm not about to hand them $5k in spend for nothing. I get it that it's the MS culture that exists there that causes them to be so dismissive of any MSR but I can't help but shake my head at some of those fools at times...

All my banks (Chase, NFCU, USAA) always offer a discount.

 

[vanjust14]

I’ve done tax hawk the last two years after tax act hiked their prices. I think the federal is free and the state is pretty cheap. I’d highly recommend it if anyone is looking for an alternative.

Thanks, I'll have to check that one out. I used to use Taxact as well but they did get too expensive. My problem is finding decent state return pricing. We need RI , MA and CT because of DH's work.

 

[alryan]

My new strategy is bundling our deductions. I'm trying to alternate years where we take the standard deduction and then itemize. And put as much of our itemized expenses into the "itemized" year by being strategic with charitable contributions and when we pay property taxes It's so fun to find a way to minimize my tax liability HAHA

I did this as well, 2018 was suppose to be my year for itemizing. Even with increased contributions to my church for a building project I don't think there is any way I'm going to get up to the $25000 for the standard deduction. With a relatively small mortgage that will only get smaller I wonder if my days of itemizing are over. I guess at least as long as the tax laws are this way. It really was only a difference of a few hundred dollars, because even with doubling up on property taxes I just barely made it over the standard deduction.

 

[Alexle2007]

All this talk about taxes, I like doing them, I use the free fillable forms online. Like @SouthFayetteFan I'm going to try and itemize every other year from now on...and this year hold on charitable contributions and property taxes until after the 1st of the year...we will see how that works out I need to run a couple more calcs on it but it should be some tax savings. I've only received two tax forms in the mail, so waiting to even start my taxes, typically by now I'm very close to filing. I like to have taxes done as early as I can. This year is a little different I have multiple bank bonuses/interest that I need to make sure to account for.

And we always wait until 4/15 to send ours since we are always writing Uncle Sam a fat check. Last year we were hit with the AMT which is just ridiculous since we are not millionaires.