This happened to me too! Check if you completed Form 8606 for non-deductible IRA contributions. It's super important to file this form every year you make non-deductible contributions, otherwise you might end up paying taxes twice on that money.

This is a really common confusion! At your income level with workplace retirement plan coverage, you're likely hitting the Traditional IRA deductibility phase-out limits that others mentioned. One quick way to verify this: look at Line 20 on your Form 1040 (Traditional IRA deduction). If it shows $0 or less than $6,500, then your contribution wasn't fully deductible due to income limits. Since you made a non-deductible Traditional IRA contribution, you absolutely need to file Form 8606 to track your basis in the account. This is crucial for avoiding double taxation when you eventually withdraw. Given your income level, you might want to consider doing a backdoor Roth IRA conversion instead. You'd contribute to Traditional IRA (non-deductible), then immediately convert to Roth. This way you get the tax-free growth benefit of a Roth IRA despite being over the income limits for direct Roth contributions. Your $930 tax reduction ($1,200 - $270) makes perfect sense if only the $3,000 capital loss was deductible. At roughly 24% marginal rate, that's about $720 in tax savings, which aligns with what you're seeing.

Quick tip: make sure you're correctly classifying people as contractors vs employees. This is my biggest nightmare as a business owner. If you're telling them WHEN, WHERE and HOW to do the work, the IRS might consider them employees, not contractors. The difference matters ALOT because for employees you need to withhold taxes, pay unemployment insurance, etc. For contractors you just send a 1099. Getting this wrong can result in huge penalties and back taxes!

Great advice from everyone here! I'm actually dealing with a similar situation right now where I have about 6 subcontractors for a large project. One thing I learned the hard way is to get those W-9 forms BEFORE you make any payments, not after. I made the mistake of paying two contractors first and then asking for their W-9s later - one of them completely ghosted me and the other took weeks to respond. Now I'm scrambling to get the paperwork sorted before year-end. Also, keep detailed records of exactly what services each contractor provided and when. The IRS can ask for this documentation if there are any questions about your 1099 filings. I use a simple project tracking spreadsheet that includes dates, amounts, and description of work performed for each contractor. Makes tax time so much easier!

Another angle to consider is checking if you received any notices from the IRS over the years that you might have missed or ignored. Sometimes people move and don't update their address, so important IRS correspondence gets lost. The IRS is required to send notices before taking collection actions, so if you never received anything about those older unfiled years, it might indicate they either don't have records requiring those returns or the amounts were too small to pursue. You can also request a copy of your "Individual Master File" (IMF) transcript, which shows a complete history of all IRS actions on your account. This is more comprehensive than the standard account transcript and will show if there were any automated assessments, notices sent, or collection activities you weren't aware of. One more thing - if you do find out the IRS created substitute returns for any of those older years, don't panic. You typically have time to file your own returns to replace them, and as others mentioned, your actual tax liability will almost certainly be lower than what they calculated. The key is addressing it proactively rather than waiting for them to contact you.

I went through almost the exact same situation a couple years ago - filed several years of back returns and was stressed about some really old ones I couldn't file due to missing documentation. Here's what I learned from the process: First, definitely get your tax account transcripts as others mentioned, but also request your "Record of Account" which combines multiple transcript types. This gives you the clearest picture of what the IRS actually has on file for each year. For those really old years where you didn't make much money, there's a decent chance you weren't required to file at all. The filing thresholds have changed over time, but if you were making close to minimum wage in retail, you might have been below the requirement. The IRS wage and income transcripts will show exactly what income was reported under your SSN for those years. One thing that really helped me was calling the IRS during the first week of March around 7 AM - way shorter hold times than later in tax season. The agent was able to tell me which years they were actually concerned about versus which ones were essentially "dormant" in their system. Don't stress too much about the older unfiled returns if your income was low. The IRS tends to focus their limited resources on cases where significant tax is actually owed. If you weren't making much money and likely didn't owe anything substantial, you're probably not high on their priority list for those ancient years. The key is just getting that definitive answer so you can stop worrying about it!

I'm a tax preparer and want to add one important clarification that might help others in similar situations. While everyone is correct that employer-paid health insurance premiums aren't included in gross income, there's one specific scenario to watch out for. If you're a more-than-2% S-corporation shareholder-employee, the employer-paid health insurance premiums ARE included in your gross income (though you may be able to deduct them elsewhere on your return). This is a pretty niche situation, but since you mentioned being close to income thresholds, it's worth noting. For the vast majority of employees (W-2 wage earners), the employer health insurance contribution is completely excluded from gross income as everyone has explained. But if you happen to be a significant owner in an S-corp, the rules are different. Given that you mentioned a regular W-2 situation with $71,500 in income, you're almost certainly in the standard employee category where the health insurance exclusion applies. Just wanted to mention this edge case since precision matters when you're near income thresholds for tax credits!

As someone who's dealt with similar AGI calculations for tax credit eligibility, I can definitely confirm what everyone has said - employer-paid health insurance premiums are excluded from your gross income under Section 106 of the tax code. What really helped me understand this was looking at my actual W-2 when it arrived. Box 1 shows your taxable wages, and the employer's health insurance contribution simply isn't included there. You might see it in Box 12 with code DD (for informational purposes), but that doesn't affect your AGI calculation at all. With your $71,500 base salary, you're in excellent shape for staying under that $75k threshold. The $9,800 your employer pays for health insurance is completely invisible to the IRS for income purposes. Plus, if you're making any pre-tax contributions to health insurance, HSA, or other benefits through payroll deduction, those actually REDUCE your AGI below your base salary. I was in almost the exact same situation last year and successfully claimed the tax credit I was worried about losing. The key is trusting that the tax system has already built in these exclusions - you don't need to add back employer benefits when calculating your AGI. You should be well within the income limits for whatever credit you're pursuing!

I went through something very similar last year! When my direct deposit didn't show up after the IRS said it was sent, I spent weeks trying to figure out what happened. Turns out my credit union had rejected the deposit because of a small discrepancy in how my name appeared on the tax return versus my account (I had used my full legal name on taxes but my account only had my first and last name). The most frustrating part was that nobody told me it was rejected - not my bank, not the IRS tools online. I only found out when I finally got through to an IRS representative who explained that rejected direct deposits automatically get converted to paper checks, but there's usually a 2-3 week delay while they process it. Since your transcript shows the refund was issued 8 days ago and your banking info is correct, I'd bet money your bank rejected it for some reason. Call them specifically and ask if they have any record of an incoming ACH deposit being rejected - they might not have notified you. The good news is your money is definitely coming, just probably as a check in the mail instead of direct deposit!

I've dealt with this exact frustration before! When your transcript shows the refund was issued but your bank has no record of it, the deposit was likely rejected for a technical reason. Banks can be really picky about name matching - even something as small as having "John A. Smith" on your tax return but "John Smith" on your bank account can trigger a rejection. The most annoying part is that nobody tells you when this happens! Your bank might not even have a record of the attempted deposit because it gets rejected before it fully processes. I'd recommend calling your bank's customer service line and specifically asking if they've rejected any incoming ACH deposits recently. Also ask if there are any holds or flags on your account that could cause issues. If the deposit was rejected, the IRS automatically sends a paper check instead, but this usually takes 2-4 weeks from the rejection date. Since it's been 8 days since your refund was issued, you're probably already in that paper check pipeline. The check should arrive within the next couple of weeks, but calling the IRS can give you confirmation and a more specific timeline.