Welcome to the Dr. Friday Radio Show is here! In this episode, Dr. Friday takes on the latest tax updates, answers the caller’s questions, and talks over the following topics:
- Dr. Friday’s Tax Tips For the Tax Season
- The Changes in Tax Laws
- The Identity Protection PIN (IP PIN)
- Did I Receive My Stimulus Payment?
- How To Get Your Taxcc Details In Order
- Can I Take My IRA Out Without Penalty?
- The Qualified a Required Minimum Distribution
- Tax Deductions You Should Know About
- Don’t Leave Tax Money On the Table
- How To Get Back on Track With the IRS
- Taxes For Individuals Are Due April 18
- What If I Received Two Stimulus Checks In 2021?
and much more!
Transcript
Announcer 0:00 No, no, no, she’s not a medical doctor, but she can sure cure your tax problems or financial woes. She’s the How-To Girl. It’s the Dr. Friday show. If you have a question for Dr. Friday, call her now. 615-737-9986. So here’s your host, financial counselor, and tax consultant, Dr. Friday. Dr. Friday 0:29 Hey, I’m Dr. Friday and the doctor is in the house on this cold, crazy Saturday. I will tell you that it is definitely going to be one of those bitter days, which is great because I’m endorsed doing taxes. So you know, safe sound and a little bit crazy myself. But if you want to join the show, this is the time I know a lot of other people are probably choosing this day to do taxes. And if you have, you can reach us at 615-737-9986. Dr. Friday 1:01 And I can take your call here in the studio, hopefully, to make your tax season go as smoothly as possible. And then we’ll be able to, you know, make sure that you’re not missing out or filing or maybe you’ve had some pretty big changes. Let’s be honest, this year has been a bit crazy. Quite a few home sales have quite a few people relocating. And unfortunately, I think probably out of my 20 plus years, a number of people that we have lost. Dr. Friday 1:27 So it’s, you know, to just age or whatever. So it’s one of those situations. So if you want to join the show, 615-737-9986 is the number and we’ve already got Dan from Mount Juliet. I appreciate your call. So let’s see if I can help you out. Hey, Dan. Caller 1:47 Hello, Dr. Friday, thank you. I do my own taxes. And I probably don’t do a very good job because they sent me a letter saying credit on account of over $1,400. And they have a notice CP80. Dr. Friday 2:03 Is that possible to say that’s for last year? Damn, where do they say they haven’t received your tax return yet? Why is it possible? Caller 2:12 I sent it in. Dr. Friday 2:13 I know, but what does the letter say? Just out of curiosity, does it say that we have a credit on account and we’re looking for and it may be your 2019 2020 tax return? Does it say that in the letter? Caller 2:25 A signed copy. If you’ve already filed this return please send a newly signed copy to Dr. Friday 2:35 Yeah, so what tax year probably 2020. Because to be quite honest with you, you along with about 5 million other people. So you’re not really feeling this too much alone, um, that they’ve sent those notices out? And actually, they got quite a reprimand from some of the other offices, because how can you send a letter out like that if you haven’t processed all the returns yet, right? Dr. Friday 2:56 I mean, doesn’t make a lot of sense. But my suggestion and we’ve gotten a couple in our office, that’s the only reason I knew how to or what the letter was about. But in all honesty, what you’re going to want to do personally, I would just get another copy at the top, say, “Second copy filed on time” is what I would put in big bold letters, resign the return. And again, you know, I would put the second signature, you know, just so they know you filed on time in the first place. Dr. Friday 3:23 And they know that most likely because the money might have been with the original return. But that being said, you can’t change what’s theirs, and then certify them another copy. And I would send it by a priority or something somewhere where you can track and know that they received it. And you may have done that the first time. And I’m just saying do it again. Because at this point, they’re saying they don’t have it. Caller 3:46 So, should I do a blank form and just copy the information from the copy that I have onto a blank form? Or should I use Xerox the form? Dr. Friday 3:53 What I would do I would do the second one I would Xerox the form you don’t need to have an original form of this as a second copy there’s no reason I would just do a xerox of it resign it because you might have a signature on the one you have. You may not but either way, you know it’s right there’s already a signature just sign above it and just resubmit it to them so they know that this was submitted already once. Caller 4:16 Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Dr. Friday 4:18 No worries. Thanks, mate. I appreciate you. Alright, and so and that is so common right this second guy I will let you know that this is something that happens a lot more than you might think. So if you are receiving that notice and again, the IRS was asked to stop sending out those notices because they have more and again I don’t know what the millions they’re down to last time I’d heard it was 6 million but hopefully they’re making progress. So they’re actually moving down so hopefully, it’s only like 5 million or 4 million. Dr. Friday 4:50 But either way, it is what it is and all we can do is work around it. I know a lot of people have come people say but I know they should have received it because the payment was with it or this that, to be honest with you at this point in the game, we don’t care right now we just want to get the IRS on track. So if it takes sending them a separate return, do that. I know it says in that letter, in some cases, it says if you’ve already filed this return, you know, you don’t have to, but in my personal opinion, you should refile and send it out certified mail or something like that. Dr. Friday 5:21 So that way, you have the ability to just say you complied with the letter. So if you’ve got a love letter, or maybe again, this year has been a big year for real estate sales. And remember, there’s a big difference between selling a piece of rental or investment property, which in some cases, you may have even done a 1031 exchange, and in other situations where you may have sold your primary, because there is a whole different game of taxes that we play with investment versus primary, and of course, 1031 is deferral. Dr. Friday 5:51 So you know, there’s a lot of things and quite a few people have taken advantage of these different searches situation. So if you did, just make sure that you’ve got all the right information, because the last thing you want is Uncle Sam to come back. And I had a situation where somebody’s mom had passed away, and they sold the home. But you know, I’m like, Well, we still need to report that right? You inherited a home you sold the home, there is possibly a 1099 s out there, the IRS is going to know that you know you that this home was sold and you are 1/4 person or whatever it might have been in this situation. Dr. Friday 6:27 And then that way, we have those numbers on there. So they can track it and match that information. So they don’t think that you got 100% Just because you received a check for $60,000 does not mean you have to pay tax on $60,000. So that’s really, really important. All right, let’s hit Bruce in Nashville. Hey, Bruce, what can I do for you, sweetie? Caller 6:48 Yeah, hey, my son is 19. And he just filed his taxes on his own. He’s, you know, got his W2 and did it on TurboTax. And I was proud of him for doing it. Dr. Friday 7:00 Did he lock you out? Caller 7:03 He actually yeah, he actually got another form where he did Instacart. And he forgot about that. And he needs to claim that and he also has mileage deduction, and I’m not sure. Should I get back into TurboTax? Or what should we do to get that corrected? Dr. Friday 7:19 Well, what you’re going to have to file is an amended return, which you probably can do through TurboTax. But you won’t be able to do until after they’ve accepted the return he filed. So if you can go in probably and prepare it but you should be able to E file the amended return. But if I was him, I probably wait just a little bit more to make sure you know everything’s in there. Because the last thing you want to do is to amend returns just you know, I mean, we all live life and it happens more times than you like to think with any of us, not just a kid to be honest. Dr. Friday 7:48 But you’re going to want to go in and that’s going to kick it into a Schedule C and there’s going to be a deduction. So the other thing is they may charge him more money on the preparation, just be prepared because sometimes schedule C’s are more expensive in the tax software because they consider their businesses. Okay, but either way, he needs to do a 10 40x and correct that as soon as he can. But you’ll have to wait. If you just filed it’s probably going to be 1015 days before you can file an amended return. Caller 8:20 Okay. All right. Thank you. Dr. Friday 8:22 No problem, sweetheart. Thanks for listening. Alright, let’s get Wayne in Nashville. Hey, Wayne, what’s happening? Caller 8:29 Hello, Dr. Friday. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you. You’re always helping people and I appreciate it. You must be an angel. Dr. Friday 8:38 Yeah, yeah. From your ears to anyways. Alright, my friend, let’s go on from there. Yes. Caller 8:46 Okay, here we go. I learned that because I’m on low income, I was paying Medicare Part A and Part B. And it went up to 178 a month for part B, and I told him I couldn’t afford it. Then they said because of your income you qualify for make cake? Well, I was on TennCare. But then when I was six, five, they put me on Medicare and they didn’t consider Medicaid. Now I got a letter in the mail two days ago saying I’ve been accepted on Medicaid, but I qualify for Medicare back payments. Now would they be coming from Medicare Social Security? Or how would I go about applying for that? Dr. Friday 9:23 Well, I’m gonna assume it would have to come from Medicare. It which is handled basically through I’m going to assume Social Security. That’s my guess. Because it sounds like you, you know, you went from Medicaid to Medicare and then they didn’t see that your income was obviously too low for it. So you know, you’re going to have to, again, I would probably start with calling Medicaid or Medicare excuse me calling Medicare and just seeing if they can lead you to the way you’re going to do as far as that getting the rebate or the refund on that? Caller 10:03 Medicaid Medicare first, not social security? Dr. Friday 10:06 I think so because it sounds like this is more of a Medicare issue than it is a social security issue. Caller 10:12 Okay, can I say this, not only are you an angel, but if I was a general, I decorate you like a Christmas tree? Dr. Friday 10:20 Well, I appreciate it very much, and thanks for being a listener. Thank you very much. Caller 10:25 Thank you. Bye, bye. Bye, bye. Dr. Friday 10:27 Alright, thank goodness, we’re on the radio, guys, because I do blush pretty easily. And all those things make me blush. So anyway, if you have a question, I mean, we are in the midst of the tax season. And let’s be honest, there are a lot of moving parts, we’ve got the $1,400, we’ve got the advanced Child Tax Credit, besides just the whole, making sure that you’ve received, if you had unemployment, and you know your W2s, and your 1099 RS or 1099 NEC’s, which they changed 1099, miscellaneous, all of these are things that we have to be dealing with, and we have to make sure that we have what we have. Dr. Friday 11:03 So if any of that doesn’t make or if it’s not something you’re sure of just make sure that you’ve made the time to, you know, go through your numbers. And again, we often think that oh, young person, you know, he went through and got his things. But I haven’t happened all the time with everyone, you’ve got a busy life, let’s be honest. And sometimes people forget that throughout the year, something happened, whatever it might have been, and then you’re like, oh, yeah, that’s when that I, oh, I got that payment, then or I got this distribution at that time. Dr. Friday 11:34 And for all of you, or many of you don’t forget that if you took the 100,000 out in 2020, that you may, you know, you have to roll that 3000 or $33,333, over to this year, which at this point, as of late yesterday, I still did not have the at 915 Form available in my tech software. So just putting that out there that don’t forget about it, because hopefully your software, roll it over. But in the case of I used into IT professional version, and they were not rolling that over. Dr. Friday 12:05 So if you’re you know, just again, make sure you’re reviewing your taxes, because the last thing you want to do is forget that you had taken the three-year distribution. And that turned into being something you forgot. And then you had to deal with, you know, paying the tax on that after you filed your taxes. Never a fun day for that guy. So again, make sure we have that correct. All right. Well, we take our first break, you can certainly join the show at 615-737-9986. We’ll be right back with the Dr. Friday show. Dr. Friday 12:44 Alrighty, we are back here live in the studio. And if you want to join the show, you can 615-367-0819. I’m sorry, that is not the radio show. 615-737-9986. Goodness, gracious. And if you want to join the show, or you have a question, or if you’re in the midst of having to deal with an estate, I know there are quite a few things that a lot of times can be very confusing to individuals, and having to make all of that work. Dr. Friday 13:21 And I mean, this year, I’ve run into a couple of unique things and doing some taxes, especially when you have like managed funds. I deal with quite a few financial planners, we work with their clients, it makes it so much easier when you have the financial planner sitting there and the tax client in many ways, because of the fact that you are able to ask questions when you have I gotcha. When you got the situation in there when you’re able to say hey, I’ve got a 1099 R here, but it’s showing a code, I don’t know code to and maybe it wasn’t an early distribution, or it’s, it’s showing, it’s not showing as a rollover or a conversion or, you know, all these different things or you gave to the qualified charitable deduction, which again, I want to make sure people understand that is a huge tax deduction for anyone that’s basically 70 and older taking required minimum distributions. Dr. Friday 14:15 In this state, my clients I mean, 20 plus years dealing with my clients, some of them I’ve had the entire time, but many of you guys I’ve met in the last, you know, 20 years. And I can only say that I am very fortunate that many of my clients are extremely giving individuals and what I mean by that is they give a lot of money. I have many people that give you know 30, 40, 50% of their income every year. And if you’re in your age 70 or older and you have a qualified a required minimum distribution, then you can give up to 100,000 through that to a charity and pay zero tax you’re giving to the charity anyway and it doesn’t affect the charity they don’t have to pay tax in So all you are is maybe even being able to give them a little bit more, because when it comes down to it, you’re basically saying, okay, I can give them $10,000. Dr. Friday 15:10 And if I don’t pay any taxes on that, I’m saving a minimum of 10%. So you’re saving $1,000 in taxes, if you’re in the 12, or 22, or even 24%, you could be saving twice that easily. So again, just make sure if you have a financial planner, or if you have requirements on distributions, talk to your custodial on this because I still find quite a few people that do not maximize this. And there is nothing wrong with maximizing your tax deduction, at the same time maximizing your charitable deduction. Dr. Friday 15:45 And, you know, as I said, either way, you look at it, it basically comes down to is you can even give more, so instead of paying taxes, you can give more to the charity if you want it to, but it does have to come from the distribution of the custodial over the account, they have to take the money, make a checkout, most of the time, they then send the check directly to the client, the client then gives it to the charity, and they’re that way you have the whole situation, you do have to still make sure you track that information because it doesn’t really show up on the actual 1099 R. Dr. Friday 16:18 So again, very important that you actually do track it and make sure you do it on the taxes correctly. But it is a wonderful tax deduction for anything like that. So if you have questions on that, again, you can also talk to your tax person or, or you can email me, I’d be more than glad to send you information, again, on the charitable deduction. I mean, many of you guys are not itemizing. Let’s just be honest, it’s not happening. You’re not itemizing. And that’s fine because that means you don’t have a ton of debt because that’s really what it comes down to, we only itemize when we have debt, we’d have to interest, property taxes, or medical both of those, usually the medical is one but charity again, some people will itemize in my office solely because of the fact that they do have a large amount of charity. Dr. Friday 17:02 But if you don’t, individuals can still claim up to $300 cash. And again, I want to make sure you understand cash. If you went to Goodwill, which is an awesome thing to give to you cleaned out your house, you cleaned out your closet, that is great. But it’s not going to qualify for the extra charitable deduction, what you do have to have is cash. So if you gave tithing to the church you gave to a food, bank, and cash. Those are the kinds of things that you need to make sure you have otherwise, you will not be able to qualify for that extra charitable deduction. Dr. Friday 17:35 And you need to make sure you’re tracking that, right? Because I’ve been for the last couple of years, we didn’t actually have the ability to take the extra. So I want to make sure that you know, you guys are putting that in your list of things that you’re going to make sure you set aside. So when it comes time for taxes, you have the ability to actually maximize that situation, it’s really important that you do that. So we don’t want to leave any tax dollars on the table. Dr. Friday 18:01 And I think I did talk a little bit about there being a deduction for individuals that have not taken any of the green credits since 2007. If you do put an air conditioner unit in now, there is up to I think a $350 deduction. But you do have to be careful because a lot of times people forget did I ever take any green credits in the past. And if you have, then you might not qualify for this one, it is sort of lifetime credits that I found out. Dr. Friday 18:30 So again, these are really important. I have heard that the IRS is pretty much straight up. I’ve had people that said I’ve seen their taxes a few days ago. And then, you know, 10, 12, 14 days later they’ve received their refunds. So that’s great news, the IRS is back on track as far as giving us what you need, just you know, making sure that they have, you know, the money, the information, and then you’re getting your money back quickly. We’re not having as many delays on the recovery rebate. I think that’s partly because I don’t know if I’ve had anyone in my taxes, maybe one or two that said they did not receive the $1,400. Dr. Friday 19:11 And I think there was a huge confusion because many people are telling me now about the 600 that they received in January. But that was part of the 2020 tax return, not 2021. And I think some people thought, well, I hadn’t received it last year. So I’m going to ask for it on my tax return. And then they received it this year. And that normally makes perfect sense. And it would have probably been smarter if they had put it on the 2021 tax return versus 2020. But again, I have to give the IRS a bit of slack only because they were never set up to do rebates or stimulus checks and track advanced child tax credits. In the last two years. They’ve had to do a lot of scrambling and just like every other business in the world, they have fewer employees today than they had at the beginning of 2020. Dr. Friday 20:00 And you know, getting someone to go to work and I wish someone could truly explain to me, why don’t we have a workforce? I mean, come on people, I know that we had some people that passed away. And I understand that some people may have stepped out of the workplace. But we’ve always had a fairly strong workforce. And now we don’t seem to have I mean, every place you go, there are people that basically say, I mean, every business I know of in my, in my over 200 clients that we do monthly, all of them are looking for people to work. So I can’t believe there isn’t somebody I mean, there isn’t work out there for all of these people. Dr. Friday 20:35 So it’d be interesting to find out because I have not yet heard a really good reason why we don’t have the workforce we had in 2019. Today, unless the stimulus and the advanced child credits and things like that have actually hindered people from going back to work, they don’t have any more of those out there. So that’s going to make it interesting, even though there is a rumor out there. And I was reading something this morning about possibly giving out an additional stimulus credit to help with the gas prices. Now, guys, I think this is crazy. I don’t really believe that we’re going to be giving any more money out just because the gas prices have gone through. Dr. Friday 21:15 And I mean, most of my clients probably heard me whining about it on Friday, because for a lot of you guys may or may not know I drive a very big car, I drive a 3500 Ram, big diesel, love my big truck, and I had to fill it up on Friday, and I paid $5.45 a gallon. That hurts seriously, people that hurt. And you know the hose 30 gallons. So it is it’s a painful experience. And you really can feel that hit your pocketbook when you have to pay for that. So I get it. And I understand that you know me again, I’ve filled another car today. And I think we paid 404 in regular Petro, for that one. Dr. Friday 21:54 And that was at the discount station in Spring Hill. So, you know, gas prices have gone out the window. And it’s making it difficult. Maybe some of the reasons some people aren’t going back to work, maybe because they can’t afford to get to work. I don’t I really don’t know the answer. But I do know that we have to get moving. And we do need to obviously start opening up drilling, that is Friday’s opinion. But we need to get our own economics back in order here. But if you’ve got questions on taxes, because none of that applies to taxes, I’m just kind of whining. Dr. Friday 22:26 If you have a tax question, you can certainly join us here. 615-737-9986 love it as you think after 13 years, almost of saying that phone number out loud, I had it down, but thank you for putting it on the screen because I forgot to write it down. Um, so we have the ability to do that. Also, don’t forget individuals, if you have an identity protection pen, and this is for anyone that may have had their identity threatened, identity is stolen, or if maybe just you know, you feel the need that you know, you don’t want someone else to file a tax return under your name. Dr. Friday 23:06 Just as a point of interest, the IRS does have a program and it’s the Identity Protection Program and you can get an IP pin, it’s a six-digit number assigned by the IRS every single year, it is a different number. So no one can get your number you get something in the mail, then you have to use that as your pin. Otherwise, most of us only have a five-digit number that we create for our clients or they’ve already created for themselves. But you can do that. So sometimes people do get a little scared, they’re a little worried about what they’re going to do or how they’re going to do it. The protection pin is another way of protecting yourself and doing what you want. So we can deal with that. Why don’t we take a break and then you can get to those phone calls. Because you know, we’ll keep you busy over there. So we’re gonna take a quick break, we’ll come back and talk to Valerie and whoever’s online after this break for the Dr. Friday show. Dr. Friday 24:08 All righty, we are back live in-studio and we have Valerie, Bob and Justin so why don’t we just go straight up to Valerie, who was very nice. There we go. Hey Valerie, what’s happening? Thanks for holding. Caller 24:21 Hey Dr. Friday. Thank you for taking my call. So I’m ahead of the household raising two grandchildren for the last four years and last November worked in the student loan industry. So I was laid off temporarily in April of 2021. Advisory hired in May. In April, I inquired about the marketplace and was willing to take out insurance starting in nine. However, when finding out about my center job back I call them and cancel that every universe help I’m finding out now when filing my taxes I continued to pay subsidies under my name. Caller 24:58 Everything tire timing is canceled. Even though I’ve paid over about $6,000 worth of employer-paid insurance, I have trouble every time I go to File it’s rejecting when you need to indicate the subsidies that were not. And marketplaces fix it, they got it all taken care of on hearing. Dr. Friday 25:18 So if they say they fixed it, Valerie, the first thing you need to do is, it may take a little time for you need to get documentation showing it’s been repaired, you need to get the 1095 A, showing the dates for that year was zero paid after the time that you went back to work, because that’s gonna be the form that you’re gonna want to submit to the IRS saying this came in essence, this is what the marketplace is saying you need to correct your system. Caller 25:46 Okay. And that’s what they said they can that can take another 30 days if they escalated again because it’s already taken 30 days. So during the wedding day, or I can pay for a file that I’m terrified to do that would have been in the marketplace, saying that they’ve backdated and canceled everything they just like is the official. Dr. Friday 26:03 But yeah, and I figure, you know, to be honest, once they do, it’s gonna take another 3069. I mean, the IRS is not known for their speed, but it’s gonna be worthless for you to mail in, in my personal opinion, you might as well wait till everything until you get that form, and then you e file. Because otherwise, if you mail it in, and if the information isn’t correct, you could end up with a change form anyways, you know, I mean, it’d be easier just to, it’s nice to get the refund, I’m assuming that you might have, but you don’t want to get lost within trying to take that refund because they think you owe back money or something. Caller 26:36 Exactly. And I was hoping I wasn’t gonna have to go into the immediate return situation, right? Because it’s like, what, 14 more weeks? Dr. Friday 26:45 No, you’re right. I mean, it’s a delay, but at least in some ways, you’re catching the delay before versus you know, I mean, because it’s always harder to get the money. And it sounds like at least you had the documents, we’ve had a couple of cases where people swear they called the marketplace. But the marketplace did not and was not willing to make any corrections on it. So great job, Caller 27:06 I think I submitted a bank statement where that broker reimbursed my money. They weren’t carrying me either. And I paid almost eight Well, 6000 and employer-paid benefits, never even knew I have because it was taking out the marketplace. And that’s what I used at my job as well. So it was difficult. But thank you so much. You’re awesome. Dr. Friday 27:25 No problem. Thank you for holding. I appreciate it. All right, Bob in Nashville. Hey, Bob. Caller 27:32 Hey, good to talk to you. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I have a question. Concerning IRA. I max out my 401k. I [inaudible] this year. Can I still contribute to an IRA Roth? Dr. Friday 27:46 Nope. Well, how much was your total income? Well, less than 130. And you’re single? Caller 27:55 Yep. Single. Dr. Friday 27:59 No that you’re single would know that you can’t contribute to the Roth IRA? But yeah, you made too much. Caller 28:06 Yeah, I thought I did. Someone told me no, I could do that. And I thought I better ask. Dr. Friday 28:11 Yeah, no, my understanding is you’ve made too much money to do it. And if do you do your own taxes, Bob? Caller 28:18 Yes, we do. Dr. Friday 28:18 Okay, I’m just going to suggest I don’t know in your software, but you can throw it in my software will immediately tell me that the person could tribute it, you know, that’s not allowed or it’s allowed. just to double-check. You know, I mean, I’m not a financial planner, but my understanding is it’s like 100, or a little less than 100 for an individual and 175 for a married couple. Caller 28:39 Okay, okay. That’s what I thought. Thank you. Dr. Friday 28:45 Hey, let’s get to Justin. Justin in Tennessee. Caller 28:54 I just had a few questions about taxes this year, I filed taxes. And all of them and I did the tax credits. And the sense of the paper. objects out of mind, and I was just wondering if I’ve done something wrong? Dr. Friday 29:28 Well, I will say that they opened up the filing season at the end of January. But they did say that people with dependents that might be qualified to earn income or advanced child credits could have an additional 15 to 20 days. So if that’s the case, even if you filed in January, it may not have been processed or they were still I think they’re just trying to check the information. But I’ll be honest, I have filed people with earned income and advanced child credits and they are getting their refunds now Within like 10 or 15 days now, you know, if you filed earlier I would have you tried going online to the irs.gov and just see if they received the return. Caller 30:11 And I did and it’s pending. I filed in the middle of January, so, pretty early. Dr. Friday 30:22 They weren’t open for, for actual, I mean, you may have filed early in January, but they weren’t even accepting. You know, it’d be physically processing them till almost the end of January. But as long as it says it’s pending, and it may just come down to where it’s just, you know, that, that there are some things on your return that they’re having to match up, making sure that you, you know, you have everything? Are you married with your own kids? Or is it his, hers, our kids? Caller 30:53 Just mine. Dr. Friday 30:55 Okay, just checking, because sometimes that’s when we run into problems when the people that flip yours or different things like that. But yeah, I mean, I would give it a little bit more time, but then I would probably say, if you have a day off, it’s going to be a day off, you might want to try calling and just seeing if you can reach somebody to see if there’s anything because I’ve had a couple of people that do that. And they find out that the delay was because they needed more information of some sort, you know, they need a confirmation or a copy of a W2, whatever. You don’t want to hold out too long on that. Because, you know, even though it’s no fun to call the IRS, you know, you think they’d send you a letter but seems like sometimes they don’t. And they just get delayed a lot longer than necessary. Caller 31:35 Yeah, and I tried calling them and went through the whole process. And when it told me that they were short-staffed and hung up the phone. Dr. Friday 31:47 Yeah, it’s hate to say, Justin, that’s about the service we’re getting right this second. I tried to always defend the IRS to the best of my ability, but sometimes the phone service, I just don’t understand it, you know, you spend hours and then they hang up or they tell you you get transferred to three different people and no one can give you the answers. It’s a bit frustrating yet you want us to call and resolve these issues. So all I would say is give it another week or so and then you’re gonna have to call again and see if you can get it every time you call. The good news is you get a different person usually, so maybe the next person will be a little better. Caller 32:21 Alright, man, well, I appreciate you. Dr. Friday 32:23 No problem. Thanks, Justin. I appreciate you. Alright, we’ve got Michael in Spring Hill. How do you like the snow on the ground, Michael? I’ve got no snow. Caller 32:31 Oh my gosh. Everybody told me we were good for one more snow and they weren’t. And as I guess, Punxsutawney Phil was right. Dr. Friday 32:41 But seriously, did you really think I mean, at six o’clock last night or whatever, I came home. You know, it was windy it was you know, a little that. And then I woke up. And I mean, my sister and I were just cracking up because I thought my brother was teasing when he said, “Oh, you’re gonna have snow in the morning.” I’m like, “No way. It’s not gonna snow” and I was so wrong. Caller 32:59 You’re like me, I never believe it till I see it. Like, how many times I’ve had them tell us it was gonna be terrible, terrible, terrible weather. They let the kids out of school. And literally, they’d stand there and watch the sunshine. Dr. Friday 33:14 Exactly, exactly. You know, but anyway, I know, that’s not why you called. I just had to share cuz I’m like, “He’s in Spring Hill, too!” Alright, Michael, what can I do for you? Caller 33:22 I have a very quick question about an amended return. If I can do a brief background on it is my wife is an individual business owner, we were looking to qualify for something specifically. And they told us the only way to do that as a self-employed person was to bite the bullet, and to instead of taking a huge amount of deductions that she can because we have business use of home and so forth, which don’t need to explain other than she has a quite a bit of deduction on her money with that comes from rescheduling fee? Well, they told us, we’d have to bite the bullet. Well, it turned out that the whole thing didn’t really work out. And she’s like, am I stuck now paying a huge tax bill. So I kind of just asked around and tried myself and don’t want to be dangerous doing that. Can we go back and file an amended return that actually includes all those deductions and make the changes? Because they’re legitimate. But I don’t want to cause a giant flag with the IRS to say we’ll write Are you coming back? Six months later to say that you should have taken all these deductions and you didn’t. Dr. Friday 34:34 Okay, so I will tell you, the IRS could very likely come back and audits as long as you do everything correctly. But the first question in an audit they often ask is Why did you not take these at the time of you know, filing, you know, um, and you know, if you say what you just kind of said they’re gonna basically say, Well, you know, we’re gonna disallow these expenses because you chose I was not to file the proper expenses at the time, because you were trying to get a loan under, you know, in essence, and you know, false pretenses whatever. Caller 35:13 You were trying to use the system in your favor, it didn’t work. And now you want to come back and cry crocodile tears. Dr. Friday 35:20 You got it, Michael. I mean, so you’ve heard the story and the fact so as long as you’re prepared to have to answer that, and there’s no guarantee it’s going to happen, you know, that would be the answer that you have to go after. I mean, as far as amending a tax return, because of an error that is on the table, that’s what the purpose of an amended return is, but I just want to make sure you, you know what the situation is. Caller 35:20 You’ve got to kind of in and I’m not asking for you to say condone or not is that you kind of has to be prepared to say, I’m kind of fudging the truth a little bit to say, “Well, I got bad advice, and I made an error. And now I’m trying to fix the errors.” And they’re like, “Ah, that sounds a little too easy for to let you off the hook. Are you like why do you make the error? How’d you make the error?” Dr. Friday 36:08 And good auditors gonna see right through it? Because I mean, obviously, you know, most people are just not that great liars. And so they’re going to basically say, “Why did you do it? What was the purpose?” And they already know, basically, they know the purpose because 99% of people that understate income may not too many of us want to understate most of us take too many expenses. Caller 36:26 I write. Like, he’s like, Why in the world? Would you want to pay us to double the tax? Dr. Friday 36:32 Exactly, there is no logical reason unless you’re going to reap some rewards. So you know, the IRS is smart enough to realize that and they can come back. And you know, if they select that return for audit, you’re likely to lose that battle. I’m just going to be quite honest with you. Caller 36:47 The only thing that I would ask you is this. She did a mistake, the amount of money that she made, because she was trying to use, like, at that point, we’re married, but at that point, we were not. And so she was like, “Well, should I include the monthly money that you give me towards the budget?” Again, you’re saying you’re kind of walking on eggshells there. Dr. Friday 37:16 You are a little bit. Yeah. I mean, because the bottom line is she came in and what I mean, I don’t know if you guys were going together for many years or whatever. But what did you do the year before? So why did you choose this year to decide you’re going to report the income I gave you versus the years before? Caller 37:31 I had a feeling that’s what you were saying. But I was hoping that you were going to go “Oh no!” Dr. Friday 37:38 I’ve actually had a number of those audits. And so I won’t say that we haven’t corrected or amended returns when someone’s walked in and done it. But you know, I think you got to go in with your eyes open. And the idea that you know, you could be chosen, you know, for the review of the audit, that’s all. Caller 37:59 I appreciate your candid, being candid with me. And I kind of felt like, we need to be prepared for the worst-case scenario. And that would be it. So thank you again, for your help. Dr. Friday 38:11 Okay, no problem. Thanks a lot. All right, we’re gonna take our last break here. If you want to join the show, you can at 615-737-9986. We’ll be right back with the Dr. Friday show. Dr. Friday 38:36 All righty, we are back here live in-studio back to the last five or six minutes. So if you want to join the show, this would be the time to do it. 615-737-9986. You can join the show live if you’d want. And remember if you do have a question, and sometimes they’re not always easy, and I will tell you I think I’m finally caught up from last week on returning people’s emails. But you can always email me if you have a question. Dr. Friday 39:09 Email friday@drfriday.com. Or go to the website at drfriday.com. And you can send me an email through the website. So any of that will work for you. Whatever is best for you we can make that happen so that way you have the ability to move forward. So if you do want to join looks like a couple of people are joining the show. I want to reiterate ahead a couple of emails. Yes, you can go online and get the identity protection pin right on the IRS website type in IP pin. And you will be able to go in there and you can fill it out you can get you can also download your IP pin number if you have all the right information to take care of that. So you just want to make sure that You have the option. Dr. Friday 40:01 There are some free programs out there it says lead people with an adjusted gross income of 73,000 or less free commercial tax software to do your E filing. Some, have lower AGI according to this. But there is you can go to irs.gov/free file and see if you can find I have found a lot of times though there are specific forms like sometimes Head of Household doesn’t get the earned income credit and that kind of thing. Alright, let’s see here. First one. Is Matt, let’s, or no, yeah, let’s go to that one. I don’t have a name, I guess. So. If your name isn’t Matt, and you’re on Nope, there we go. Okay, let’s go to Matt in Mount Juliet. Dr. Friday 40:43 Okay, we lost them both. Well, that’s right, both of them will seem to have disappeared. Guess we’re, you know, we’re such a hot subject, we’re just losing them on the line there. But again, if you want to contact us, you can contact us at friday@drfriday, comm or go to the website, send an email through there at friday@drfriday.com, you can tell them multitasking here. So just want to make sure if you’re doing your taxes, take that extra time, make sure that you’ve got the information that you need to have, make sure that you’ve double-checked who you may have worked for. Dr. Friday 41:19 Make sure that you have the ability to take the 1099 Rs, 1099 miscellaneous, 1099 NECs, a lot of people did some driving to make up some income. So don’t forget, if you did Uber or Lyft, or any of those that you pick up those incomes. And just you know, just make sure that you are dealing with what you need to deal with. And that you’re able to keep going. And don’t just hit the send button, make that extra step to make sure you’ve covered everything. Dr. Friday 41:53 Because when you file your taxes, it’s a lot easier to fix anything. If you haven’t sent the tax return yet, where if you have to wait, then amending, amending is always going to take a lot longer. And that’s why when Valerie found out her situation, she went and dealt with it before because that’s just what the crazy situation is. You don’t want to you know, you don’t want to have to go backward and try to get the IRS on the same page much easier if you can actually get them on the first and then do it that way. All right. Let’s see if Matt is going to make it through the phone system. Hey, Matt, you still there? Caller 42:27 Yes, ma’am. Can you hear me now? Dr. Friday 42:29 I can hear you now. Alright, Matt, what can I do for you? Caller 42:35 I’ll make this quick. So we have some family members who recently go to sell a home they found out the IRS had a lien on the home. They contacted the IRS come to find out it should not have been on there. So they were sending them a letter to actually remove the lien and go to the clerk of courts to have that removed. We just want to find out for them just trying to help them is that the right process as you know this letter coming in, they’re all stressed out because the current the tower companies currently holding the funds or they sold the house. Dr. Friday 43:05 It’s better for the title company to hold the funds and wait until you get the wave removal the lien removal off of the books than having the IRS take the money and then trying to get the money from the IRS personally speaking. So it’s not going to be a fast process. No matter what happens with the IRS, there is a lien division. Hopefully, they’re dealing directly with them because they are a lot faster than trying to just go through the basic 800 number. But it will take them a little while to get the lien removed and everything processed properly. Caller 43:36 I think they said they expect 30 days for the lein removal letter. Is that correct? Dr. Friday 43:43 That sounds about right. Yeah, I would, I would expect the whole process to take a minimum of 30 to 60 days. Caller 43:50 Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate your help. Dr. Friday 43:53 No problem. Thanks, Matt. All right. Again, if you want to or you need some help with asking questions or dealing with things you can certainly go to friday@drfriday.com send your question or go to my website, drfriday.com. And you can send us and also tell you a little bit about who we are. Dr. Friday 44:09 I will be quite honest unless you are returning clients. At this point, our firm is basically full. Our calendar is closed online. We are pretty much done. Now we can file extensions, and get you guys in after the April 18 deadline. But we will not be able to file under the current clock. We’re just full. But if you have some situation that you need some additional help with we will try our best to at least get an extension or something filed that we can then help you after that time. I don’t like to leave people without help but you know, it is what it is. Dr. Friday 44:45 So if you need help with that or you need to deal with tax issues, remember the easiest way to deal with them is to not put the love letter in the drawer. It’s to actually deal with those love letters. Because, you know, even like Matt called and said that lien. That makes sense, because sometimes sooner or later, there should have been a love letter sent to that couple or whoever it was. But to be quite honest, it could have been five, six years ago, a lien can stay on for quite a while. Dr. Friday 45:10 And they may have thought they resolved the issue and never checked to see if the lien was ever removed. That happens a lot more than other people might think. So just make sure that you know, the paperwork is filed properly and that you’re able to move forward. So this is the end of the Dr. Friday show. So I hope that you guys have a really great Saturday, the weather is a bit nippy outside. Dr. Friday 45:31 So it’s a good day to work on tax returns. If you need help, 615-367-0819 is the direct number to our office. Friday@drfriday.com is my direct email. And again, you can always go to the website. It gives you a lot of information about who I am and that is drfriday.com. And again, the phone number of the office is 615-367-0819. I hope you guys have again, a wonderful Saturday. Enjoy the weather. Stay warm, and as we always say on our show, I’ll call you later.