When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

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dickenjb
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When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by dickenjb »

Anyone know what month Intuit updates the TaxCaster web page to reflect the new year's tax laws, brackets, etc?

Obviously not before mid April as the TaxCaster is still showing 2011.

If anyone recalls from previous years please let us know. I am anxious to start modeling my 2012 tax situation and I could do it in Excel but TaxCaster is so convenient and easy to use.
livesoft
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by livesoft »

Did any tax laws change substantially for 2012?
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by sscritic »

Certain items are inflation adjusted, e.g., brackets, standard deduction.
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by sscritic »

Solution: deflate your 2012 income. If you make $102,000, put $100,000 into the 2011 taxcaster.
Question: when you get your tax estimate, do you then have to reflate it back? :)
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dickenjb
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by dickenjb »

sscritic wrote:Solution: deflate your 2012 income. If you make $102,000, put $100,000 into the 2011 taxcaster.
Question: when you get your tax estimate, do you then have to reflate it back? :)
Actually I don't think that will work. But you have given me an idea.

Subtract from your income the delta between 2012 and 2011 Standard Deduction and Personal Exemptions.
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by sscritic »

dickenjb wrote:
sscritic wrote:Solution: deflate your 2012 income. If you make $102,000, put $100,000 into the 2011 taxcaster.
Question: when you get your tax estimate, do you then have to reflate it back? :)
Actually I don't think that will work. But you have given me an idea.

Subtract from your income the delta between 2012 and 2011 Standard Deduction and Personal Exemptions.
That takes care of half of it, but doesn't account for the expanded brackets (more of your income will be taxed at 10%, more at 15%, etc.).
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dickenjb
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by dickenjb »

sscritic wrote:
dickenjb wrote:
sscritic wrote:Solution: deflate your 2012 income. If you make $102,000, put $100,000 into the 2011 taxcaster.
Question: when you get your tax estimate, do you then have to reflate it back? :)
Actually I don't think that will work. But you have given me an idea.

Subtract from your income the delta between 2012 and 2011 Standard Deduction and Personal Exemptions.
That takes care of half of it, but doesn't account for the expanded brackets (more of your income will be taxed at 10%, more at 15%, etc.).
Yeah I just figured that out. OK, to Excel I go. Will be more accurate since TaxCaster does not account for foreign tax credit anyway.
DSInvestor
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by DSInvestor »

If you itemize deductions, you're not using the std deduction anyway so you're just left with Personal Exemptions which is $100/exemption higher in 2012 than 2011.

IMO, you can get close enough without making adjustments with Taxcaster 2011. You can get even closer once Taxcaster 2012 is released. You can get it almost exact once the 2012 tax prep software packages are released in late 2012.

When trying to figure out how much I can convert tax free to Roth IRA, I don't need it to be exact. For other things like Roth IRA contribution eligibility, folks who are close may need to know to the dollar, but these folks may also be surprised at year end like bonuses, capital gains distributions to make then ineligible.
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by Alan S. »

The tough part is determining what your taxable mutual funds might distribute late in the year, ie amount of LT gains or ST gains that will be added to dividends, but will not be qualified. Also, what securities sales you might do and what your basis will be at the time of sale. And if you happen to receive SS benefits, there is a compounding affect between the two factors. In my case, I discovered that there was a 7,000 band of conversion amounts that was taxable @ 55.5%! SS was being dragged into AGI in the 15% bracket while simultaneously pushing qualified dividends into the 25% bracket.

As for AMT, the usual last minute Congressional fix will of course come into play for those in the AMT.

Would like to see 2012 Taxcaster by fall at the latest.
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dickenjb
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by dickenjb »

It may be coming soon. Checked Oct 1 and the old one was still up. Went online today and the headline says Taxcaster 2012 but the tool is the old 2011 one. Perhaps today is transition day.

http://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/ca ... taxcaster/
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by Alan S. »

A logical date for the switch would be 10/16, the day after the extended due date for 2011 has passed.

I really need it no later than 12/1 for year end tax moves, basically to determine annual conversion amount, while watching Congress squirm to resolve the mess of their own creation.
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by Sidney »

Alan S. wrote:A logical date for the switch would be 10/16, the day after the extended due date for 2011 has passed.

I really need it no later than 12/1 for year end tax moves, basically to determine annual conversion amount, while watching Congress squirm to resolve the mess of their own creation.
I would think that most software vendors will release in early December something that is close enough for finalizing year-end. Most of the mess is in 2013 and beyond if I recall correctly. Is the AMT patch hanging loose again this year? Most software released early lets you decide to force the patch even if it is an open issue.
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dickenjb
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by dickenjb »

Well it must be in transition because it gives a tax refund of $25 no matter what the inputs. I put in $400K of income and no withholding and it said I would get a $25 refund. I wish.
dad2000
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by dad2000 »

A quick search indicates that the mobile app for tax year 2011 were released around 10/19/2010. So likely any day now, or possibly 10/16 as a poster had suggested?
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dickenjb
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by dickenjb »

Well it is still showing "Estimate your 2012 Taxes" up above but the Flash tool that loads is the 2011 version...
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by gkaplan »

I've been checking once a day, sometimes twice, for the last several weeks. Nothing's changed.
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by Grt2bOutdoors »

Not today, but "dinkytown.net" has a cool 1040 calculator that calculates 2013 federal tax liability based on current law.
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dickenjb
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by dickenjb »

I am happy to report that Intuit has finally updated Taxcaster for the 2012 tax year.

The iPhone app updated yesterday 11/07/2012 and when I checked the web version this morning it was updated as well.
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by Alan S. »

That's good news and thanks for checking.

Remember that there are several items that could be changed retroactively to 1/1/2012, such as AMT patch, QCD, and possibly other things included in the upcoming fiscal cliff games.
Carl53
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by Carl53 »

Pretty simple to use. Glad I was able to get it to match my spreadsheet estimate.
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by Alan S. »

If you are considering such things as gain harvesting, accelerating deductible expenses, Roth conversions, etc, the following CCH article may be helpful:

http://tax.cchgroup.com/downloads/files ... policy.pdf
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by BigFoot48 »

When I use the 2012 Taxcaster online and the one on my iPod Touch with a result of $878 in taxable income, both show $0 tax. Why shouldn't this be $87.80? When I plug my amounts into TurboTax 2011 I get a 10% tax amount off a slightly different taxable income amount due to the lower deductions/exemptions.

Is TaxCaster just rounding down to $0 or is there some new credit I'm unaware of?
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by DSInvestor »

BigFoot48 wrote:When I use the 2012 Taxcaster online and the one on my iPod Touch with a result of $878 in taxable income, both show $0 tax. Why shouldn't this be $87.80? When I plug my amounts into TurboTax 2011 I get a 10% tax amount off a slightly different taxable income amount due to the lower deductions/exemptions.

Is TaxCaster just rounding down to $0 or is there some new credit I'm unaware of?
Did you see anything appear in the credits field (just below taxes and AMT Tax)?

What types of income did you enter? Not all taxable is taxable as ordinary income. For example, Long Term Capital Gains (LTCG) or Qualified Dividend Income (QDI) receive preferential tax treatment. LTCG and QDI are taxable but the tax rate is 0% for the amount that falls in the 15% or lower, 15% for the amount in the 25% bracket or higher.

I ran two quick scenarios using Taxcaster online for a single filer age 50 one for interest income and another for QDI.

Scenario 1:
40K of interest income (treated as ordinary income)
Taxable income is $30,250
Fed Tax is $4,106.

Scenario 2:
40K of Dividends (which Taxcaster treats as QDI)
Taxable Income is $30,250
Fed Tax is ZERO

The amount of gross income and taxable income is the same in both scenarios but the tax treatment of types of income is different.
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BigFoot48
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by BigFoot48 »

Yes, it was the dividends which TC treated as Qualified and I missed that. Remove that $1,300 and I do indeed have $0 tax for this year. Thanks for the tip.
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by DSInvestor »

BigFoot48 wrote:Yes, it was the dividends which TC treated as Qualified and I missed that. Remove that $1,300 and I do indeed have $0 tax for this year. Thanks for the tip.
Unfortunately, Taxcaster treats the dividends field as 100% QDI. My taxable account holds TSM and FTSE fund. TSM's dividend has been 100% QDI but FTSE's is around 70% QDI so that 30% non-QDI has to go in the interest field for my tax scenarios.
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dickenjb
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by dickenjb »

So does anybody know what 2012 Taxcaster is assuming for the AMT exemption for 2012? Playing around with an income of 150K and 10 dependents it calculates a total tax of $18,525 which (I believe) assumes an AMT exemption of $78750 for MFJ. That surprises me because it was $74,450 in 2011 and is scheduled to go to $45K without congressional action. It only went up $1500 to 2000 a year from 2009 to 2010 and 2010 to 2011 so surprised they would forecast a $4K increase this year. 26%*(150,000-78,750)=18525.

Edited to add:

Never mind, I have confirmed that the Intuit folks have "baked in" the AMT patch in the amount of $78,750. Be advised that should the AMT patch not be passed, the numbers we are getting from Taxcaster will be way off for those of us (fortunate? / unfortunate?) enough to be subject to AMT.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/ ... FC20121010

http://www.mystockoptions.com/faq/index ... 08C79F9E62
Last edited by dickenjb on Tue Nov 13, 2012 10:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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SteelyEyed
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by SteelyEyed »

Thanks for posting that dickenjb. I was assuming that it was showing me in AMT territory for the first time due to the lack of a patch. Time to make some changes...
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Re: When does Taxcaster for the new year appear?

Post by letsgobobby »

I clearly do not understand the AMT. Taxcaster says that despite being in the 33% bracket, each $100 of charitable donations reduces my taxes by $35, suggesting some weird AMT phase in deal that I can't comprehend, even worth this article:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/feeonlyplan ... weet-spot/
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