Don't forget that even if your clients don't send you 1099-NECs (which happens a lot with smaller clients who don't know the rules), you still need to report ALL your income! The IRS doesn't care if you got a form or not. I've been freelancing for 6 years and I just create my own tracking system. I have clients that pay through Venmo, PayPal, direct deposit, and even paper checks (yes, still). I record everything in a spreadsheet with the payment method noted. Then at tax time, I can easily see what should be on forms and what might not be.

I just went through this exact situation last year as a freelancer! Here's what I learned after making some mistakes: You definitely need to provide W-9s to ALL your clients who pay you $600+ per year - this includes Client A for their full $4,000. The payment method doesn't matter for the client's 1099-NEC reporting requirement. For the 1099-K situation with Wise: Yes, if your total transactions across ALL clients through Wise exceed $20,000 AND you have more than 200 transactions, Wise will issue you a 1099-K. But here's the key - you won't be double-taxed because you only report your actual income once on Schedule C. What saved me was keeping a detailed spreadsheet with columns for: Client Name, Payment Date, Amount, Payment Method, and any fees deducted. This way when I got my 1099-NECs from clients AND a 1099-K from my payment processor, I could easily reconcile everything and make sure I wasn't over-reporting. One tip: Don't wait until tax time to organize this! I update my spreadsheet weekly now, and it makes everything so much easier. The IRS cares about your total income, not how many different forms report pieces of it.

Got the same DDD with Navy Federal! Have you noticed if they process refunds differently depending on the amount? I've heard larger refunds sometimes take the full time while smaller ones might come early. Has anyone experienced this pattern with Navy Federal specifically?

Navy Federal member here with some alternative information. According to Treasury Regulation §31.6302-1(h), financial institutions are actually required to credit accounts on the effective date specified in the ACH entry (the DDD), not before. Navy Federal's early release is technically a courtesy where they're fronting the money before they receive it from the Treasury. I'd suggest setting up text alerts for any deposit activity and then planning your budget based on the actual DDD, treating any early deposit as a pleasant surprise rather than an expectation.

has anyone tried getting their w2 info through the irs "get transcript" online? i heard you can get wage & income transcripts that show all your w2 info there but when i tried to set up an account it wanted a credit card number or loan account number for verification and i don't have either of those things? super annoying.

I went through this exact same situation last year! Here's what worked for me: First, try sending a certified letter to your previous employer's HR department requesting your W-2. This creates a paper trail and shows you made a formal request. Include your full name, SSN, employment dates, and current mailing address. If that doesn't work within 2 weeks, definitely call the IRS at 800-829-1040. They can contact your employer directly and will also send you a wage and income transcript that has all the same information as your W-2. The transcript is actually accepted by most tax software and preparers. One tip: if you have your final paystub from that job, it should show your year-to-date earnings and withholdings, which is basically all the info that would be on your W-2. Many tax preparers can work with that if you're in a real time crunch. Don't stress too much - this happens more often than you'd think, and there are definitely ways to get the info you need before the deadline!

Is no one gonna talk about offshore accounts? Like aren't all these billionaires just hiding money in the Cayman Islands or something to avoid the 23.8% capital gains entirely? I thought that was the main thing they did.

Something that hasn't been fully explored here is how stock options and restricted stock units (RSUs) complicate the tax picture for tech billionaires. When executives receive stock compensation, they often pay ordinary income tax rates (up to 37%) when the options vest or RSUs are delivered, not the lower capital gains rates. However, any appreciation after that point is subject to capital gains treatment. So if a CEO exercises options at $50/share, pays ordinary income tax on that amount, and later sells at $200/share, only the $150/share gain gets the preferential capital gains treatment. This means that for many tech billionaires, a significant portion of their wealth was already taxed at the higher ordinary income rates. The 23.8% capital gains rate only applies to the appreciation that occurs after they actually own the stock outright. This context is important when evaluating their overall tax burden on stock sales - they're not getting the lower rate on the entire transaction value.

For what it's worth, I had this exact same error last year. The problem was that I checked the box saying my main home was in the US for more than half the year, but then I incorrectly filled out Part I-B instead of Part I-A on Schedule 8812. Double check which part of Schedule 8812 you're completing. If you checked the US residency box, you should be filling out Part I-A, not Part I-B. The error happens when there's a mismatch between your residency selection and which calculation section you complete.

I had the exact same IND-460 error with Schedule 8812 last month and it drove me crazy! After hours of troubleshooting, I found the issue was in the calculation flow between forms. Here's what fixed it for me: Go to your Form 1040 Line 19 and write down that exact amount. Then go to Schedule 8812 and make sure you're using the correct worksheet (Part I-A if you're a US resident, Part I-B if not). The amount that flows to Line 15 on Schedule 8812 MUST match Line 19 on your 1040 exactly. The error happens because Free Fillable Forms doesn't automatically sync these amounts like paid software does. You have to manually ensure they match. Also double-check that you haven't accidentally entered the same child in multiple places or mixed up refundable vs non-refundable credit amounts. Once I made sure these numbers were identical and consistent with my residency status, the error disappeared and I could finally e-file!