A lower refund usually means you had more money in your paychecks throughout the year. Check your final pay stubs from both years and compare the net pay. Bet you'll find you were bringing home more per check this year! A refund is just you getting your own money back that you overpaid, it's not free money from the government lol

I had almost the exact same thing happen to me! Expected around $2,000 and only got $750. After digging through everything, I found a few key things that changed between last year and this year: 1. My employer switched payroll companies mid-year and the new one used slightly different withholding calculations - even though my W-4 stayed the same, they were withholding about $15 less per paycheck. 2. I had a small amount of freelance income this year ($800) that I reported on a 1099, which pushed me just over a threshold for one of the tax credits I was getting last year. 3. The big one - last year I was still getting some pandemic-related tax benefits that expired. I didn't realize how much those were helping my refund until they were gone. My advice is to pull out last year's tax return and compare it line by line with this year's. Look especially at your credits section and any COVID-related items from last year. Also check if your employer changed anything about payroll - sometimes they don't announce small changes to withholding procedures. It's frustrating but you probably didn't actually pay more in taxes, you just got more money throughout the year in your paychecks instead of at refund time!

One thing nobody has mentioned yet is that the AMT credit carryforward doesn't expire - so if you can't use all of it this year against your capital gains, you don't lose it. Sometimes it makes sense to spread out stock sales over multiple years to maximize the benefit of your AMT credits.

This is such a timely discussion! I'm dealing with almost the exact same situation after exercising ISOs last year and getting hit with a $35k AMT bill. What I've learned through painful experience is that the AMT credit interaction with capital gains is more nuanced than most people realize. One key point that hasn't been fully emphasized: your AMT credit can only reduce your regular tax down to your current year's tentative minimum tax, not to zero. So even with a large AMT credit carryforward, you might still owe some tax on your capital gains if your AMT calculation for the current year results in a significant tentative minimum tax. I'd strongly recommend running scenarios with different amounts of stock sales before you commit to selling everything at once. In my case, I found that selling about 60% of my planned shares this year and 40% next year allowed me to use more of my AMT credits effectively than selling everything in one year. The reason is that large capital gains can actually trigger AMT again in the current year, which limits how much of your prior AMT credits you can use. Form 8801 is definitely the key form to understand - it walks through the calculation of how much AMT credit you can use each year. Don't be surprised if the calculation seems counterintuitive at first!

One thing nobody's mentioned - if you decide to claim it as a business expense, make sure you're only using it for business purposes! If you're making coffee for your family or personal use, you'll need to adjust the deduction percentage accordingly. IRS isn't stupid and they know nobody buys a fancy espresso machine JUST for work.

As someone who's been through multiple IRS audits with my consulting LLC, I'd strongly recommend being very conservative with equipment like this. The $4,200 price point is going to raise eyebrows - I've seen auditors question much smaller equipment purchases for home offices. If you do proceed, document EVERYTHING. Keep a log of every business use (client calls, video shoots, editing sessions), take photos showing it in your dedicated workspace, and consider getting it appraised to establish fair market value. The burden of proof is on you to show legitimate business purpose. Honestly though? For that price, you might want to consider a commercial-grade machine around $1,500-2,000 instead. Still high quality for your needs, but much easier to defend as "ordinary" for a video production business. Sometimes the peace of mind is worth more than the extra features.

Based on what StarGazer101 mentioned about income thresholds, you might want to first calculate whether the passive losses would have actually been usable in each year before deciding which returns to amend. The $150k MAGI phase-out for rental real estate losses could significantly simplify your amendment strategy. If you were above the threshold in certain years, those losses would have been suspended regardless of whether they were properly carried forward or not. You'd only need to amend the years where your income was low enough that the corrected passive losses would have actually reduced your tax liability. This could potentially save you from having to amend every single year since 2020. I'd recommend pulling together your AGI for each year first and doing the phase-out calculation before deciding on your amendment approach.

I went through something very similar with my rental property passive losses last year. One key thing that helped me was creating a spreadsheet tracking the correct passive loss amounts year by year before deciding which returns to amend. What I discovered is that you really need to look at both your income levels each year AND whether you had other passive income that could have absorbed some of the losses. Sometimes rental losses can offset other passive income even when you're above the $150k threshold. Also, don't forget that if you do decide to amend multiple years, you'll want to file them in chronological order and wait for each one to be processed before submitting the next. The IRS systems need to see the corrected carryforward amounts in sequence or you might end up with correspondence asking you to explain the discrepancies. The good news is that once you get this straightened out, your future returns will be much cleaner. I'd definitely recommend keeping better documentation of your passive loss calculations going forward - it saves so much headache later!

I've helped exactly 17 clients with 1095-A issues this tax season already. Here's a specific example that might help you understand what you're dealing with: Client had a 1095-A showing $437.28 monthly premium, $578.45 for the SLCSP (Second Lowest Cost Silver Plan), and $312.00 in monthly APTC (Advanced Premium Tax Credit). Their actual annual income was $32,450 instead of the $29,000 they estimated when applying for coverage. When we completed Form 8962, they had to repay $428 of their premium tax credit because their actual income was higher than projected. However, since their income was at 253% of the Federal Poverty Level, their repayment was capped at $800 (they would have owed $624 without the cap). The most common mistake I see is people entering annual totals instead of monthly amounts from the 1095-A. Be precise with those numbers!

Hey Alicia! I totally understand that overwhelmed feeling - the 1095-A can definitely look intimidating at first glance! 😅 As a fellow student who went through this last year, here's what helped me get through it: **Quick sanity check first:** Make sure all the information on your 1095-A looks correct (coverage months, premium amounts, etc.). If anything looks off, contact the Marketplace for a correction before filing. **The good news:** Most tax software (TurboTax, FreeTaxUSA, etc.) will walk you through this step-by-step. You basically just enter the numbers from each box on your 1095-A and it does the heavy lifting on Form 8962. **Student-specific tip:** Since you mentioned you're a full-time student, your income might be pretty low, which could actually work in your favor! If your actual income ended up being lower than what you estimated when you signed up, you might get additional tax credits back as a refund. **Before your appointment:** Have your 1095-A ready and double-check that the monthly premium amounts match what you actually paid. Your tax preparer will need these exact numbers. You've got this! The anticipation is definitely worse than actually doing it. Let us know if you run into any specific questions about the numbers on your form! 📋