Tip from a former IRS employee: call on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday around 1-2pm Eastern. Mondays and Fridays are absolute nightmares with call volume, and mornings are always slammed too. Mid-week afternoon is your best chance of getting through.

I feel your pain! I was in the exact same boat with my 2023 refund showing "still processing" for months. What finally worked for me was calling the practitioner priority line at 866-860-4259. You're supposed to be a tax professional to use it, but they don't actually verify - just say you're calling on behalf of a client (yourself). The wait times are usually much shorter and the agents seem more knowledgeable. Got through in about 20 minutes and found out there was a simple address verification issue holding up my refund. Had it resolved the same day!

Is anyone else having issues with Keeper this year? My experience has been a nightmare. Not only did it miscalculate my self-employment tax initially, but the customer service has been unresponsive for days.

I had a similar experience with Keeper this year too! The calculation seemed off and when I tried to get help, their chat support kept giving me generic responses that didn't address my specific question. What really frustrated me was that they charged my card for the filing fee before I could even review everything properly. I ended up double-checking all my numbers manually and found a few errors in how they categorized some of my business expenses. Definitely considering other options for next year - this level of service isn't worth the cost.

quick tip: i use the free "its deductible" tool from turbotax to track donations throughout the year. it has preset values for common items based on condition and automatically tallies everything up at tax time. saved me tons of time trying to figure out what my old jeans were worth lol

Great question! I was in a similar boat a few years ago - making around the same income and donating regularly but being pretty disorganized about it. Here's what I learned: At your income level, you'll probably benefit more from the standard deduction than itemizing, but I'd still recommend tracking your donations for a few reasons: 1. Your situation could change - if you get married, buy a house, or have major medical expenses, itemizing might suddenly make sense 2. It helps you understand your giving patterns and budget better 3. The IRS requires documentation for any charitable deductions you do claim For tracking, I keep it simple: I take a quick photo of items before donating, get receipts from the charity, and use a basic spreadsheet with date, organization, and estimated value. For valuation, Goodwill's donation guide is pretty reliable - just be honest about condition (most of our old clothes are "good" not "like new"). Even if the tax benefit isn't there right now, having organized records gives you options and takes the stress out of tax season. Plus, it's actually kind of nice to see how much you're giving back to the community over the year!

I've been through a similar situation with an old tax debt and want to share what I learned about calculating CSED from transcripts. The key thing to understand is that your transcript will show transaction codes that tell the story of your debt timeline. Look for these specific codes on your transcript: - Code 150: This is your original assessment date - your 10-year clock starts here - Code 520/521: Suspension start/end (as others mentioned) - Code 340: Installment agreement established - Code 341: Installment agreement terminated - Code 420: Examination (audit) started - Code 421: Examination closed Each suspension period gets added to your original 10 years. So if you had a 6-month installment agreement, your CSED becomes 10 years and 6 months from the assessment date. One thing I didn't see mentioned yet - if you moved out of the country for any extended period, that can also suspend the collection statute. The IRS can't effectively collect while you're living abroad, so that time doesn't count toward your 10 years either. Since you mentioned not hearing from the IRS in years, there's a good chance your CSED might actually be approaching or may have already passed. But given how complex these calculations can be with all the potential extensions, I'd definitely recommend getting a definitive answer rather than guessing.

This is such a helpful thread! I'm dealing with a similar situation from 2012 and had no idea about all these different codes on transcripts. @Vanessa Chang, thank you for that comprehensive breakdown of the transaction codes - that's exactly what I needed to understand what I'm looking at. One question I have: if the IRS accepted an Offer in Compromise that was later withdrawn or rejected, does that time still count as a suspension period? I think I see some codes on my transcript related to an OIC I submitted years ago that didn't go through, but I'm not sure if that affected my CSED calculation. Also, for anyone still trying to figure this out - I noticed that some transcripts don't show all the historical data if you're only looking at certain types of transcripts. Make sure you're getting your "Account Transcript" rather than just a "Tax Return Transcript" because the account version shows all the collection activity and suspension periods.

For what it's worth, I found FreeTaxUSA's help pages on the Section 199A deduction super helpful. If you search their help center for "QBI" or "199A" it gives step-by-step instructions with screenshots.

I've been using FreeTaxUSA for a few years now and ran into this exact same issue with K-1 forms. One thing that really helped me was creating a simple mapping between my K-1 and the software fields before I started entering data. For Box 20 Code Z, here's what I do: I lay out my K-1 next to the FreeTaxUSA screen and match each number to its corresponding field by reading the field labels carefully. The three main categories are usually pretty clear once you know what to look for - your share of business income, wages the business paid to employees, and the cost basis of business property. Also, don't stress too much about getting it perfect on the first try. FreeTaxUSA lets you go back and edit these entries multiple times, and they have a pretty good error-checking system that will flag obvious mistakes. The 199A deduction can definitely be worth several thousand dollars, so it's worth taking the time to get it right!