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One thing nobody's mentioned yet - if your wife is in construction, she should ABSOLUTELY be tracking any meals she buys when working at job sites far from her usual work area. Construction contractors can deduct 100% of those meals for 2023 (normally it would be 50% but there's a temporary COVID relief provision). Also, if she's buying any small tools under $2,500 each, look into "de minimis safe harbor election" which lets you deduct them immediately instead of depreciating them.
Wait what? 100% of meals can be deducted? I thought that was only for actual businesses, not independent contractors? And what counts as "far from usual work area"? Like is that a specific mile range?
Independent contractors ARE businesses - that's the whole point of being a contractor instead of an employee. As long as your wife files a Schedule C, she's operating a business and qualifies for these deductions. For the "far from usual work area" definition, there's no specific mile requirement in the tax code, but the general rule is that it needs to be far enough that it wouldn't be reasonable to return home for meals. Most tax professionals consider anything requiring an overnight stay or sites more than 50 miles from your home base to clearly qualify, but even shorter distances can work if there's a business necessity to remain on-site.
Hey one quick question about mileage deduction - my husband is also in construction and we've been tracking his mileage, but does driving from home to the first job site count? And from the last job site back home? Or only between job sites during the day?
I'm not a tax pro but I've been a contractor for 6 years. The drive from home to first job site and last job site to home are considered personal commuting miles and NOT deductible. Only the miles between job sites during the day count as business miles. EXCEPTION: If you have a qualifying home office that serves as your principal place of business, then drives from home to job sites CAN be deductible business miles.
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Is there any chance your employer qualifies for FMLA? The cutoff is 50 employees within 75 miles, but sometimes small businesses are actually part of larger corporate structures that might push them over the threshold. Also, have you looked into whether your state has any pregnancy accommodation laws? Some states have protections that kick in at lower employee counts than FMLA. Might be worth checking what your state offers specifically.
I'm sure we don't qualify for FMLA - we're truly a small independent business with just 12 employees total. I did check into my state's laws and unfortunately we're in a state with minimal protections beyond the federal requirements. I'm going to look into the temporary disability option that a few people mentioned. I had no idea that might be available to me! And I'm definitely not going to file for unemployment fraudulently. After reading everyone's comments, I can see that's a terrible idea that could come back to haunt both me and my employer.
Your employer might not understand that unemployment agencies often cross-check data with the IRS. When you claim a new dependent (your baby) with a birthdate that matches your "layoff" period, it creates an obvious red flag. I process payroll for a small business and this kind of stuff gets caught more often than people think.
This is so true. My sister works for our state's unemployment department and they absolutely compare birth records with unemployment claims. They also check social media sometimes. Someone at her office caught a claimant posting about their new baby on Facebook during the exact period they claimed to be "laid off" and actively seeking work.
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Another thing to consider - the $600 threshold isn't consistent across all crypto activities. Mining, staking rewards, and airdrops have different reporting requirements than trading. For example, mining rewards are reported as income when received (not capital gains), and then you have a capital gain/loss when you eventually sell those coins. Super confusing!
The whole system seems designed to confuse us. I've been holding some coins for years - do I seriously need to go back and figure out what I paid for them if I sell now?
This might be a dumb question, but do I only report when I sell crypto for USD? What about trading one crypto for another? I swapped some BTC for ETH but never converted to actual money.
Not a dumb question at all! Trading one crypto for another (like BTC for ETH) is absolutely a taxable event, even if you never converted to USD. The IRS treats it as if you sold the BTC for USD at market value, and then used that USD to buy the ETH. You have to calculate and report the gain/loss on that BTC based on what you originally paid for it versus its value at the time you traded it. This is one of the most overlooked aspects of crypto taxes that catches people by surprise!
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One thing nobody's mentioned is that your mom should calculate the actual dollar value of all support. List every expense related to your support (housing, food, utilities, tuition, books, clothing, medical, etc.) and figure out the total amount. Then determine how much she paid vs how much you paid from your own money. If you're using student loans for education expenses, those count as support YOU provided, not your mother - that trips up a lot of people. Same with scholarships (those are considered support provided by a third party, not by either of you).
Wait, student loans count as support provided by the student?? I had no idea. What about if the parent is a cosigner on the loan? And do parent PLUS loans count as support from the parent?
Student loans are indeed considered support provided by the student even if a parent cosigns, because the student is ultimately responsible for repaying the loan. This is a common misunderstanding that causes problems during audits. For Parent PLUS loans, those DO count as support provided by the parent because the parent is legally responsible for repaying them, not the student. This distinction is important when calculating the total support. Another thing people often miss is that qualified tuition paid directly by the parent to the educational institution always counts as support from the parent.
My situation was very similar but I was confused about whether to include my son's tuition when calculating support. He had a scholarship that covered 75% of it. When you calculate total support, do you include the full tuition amount?
Yes, you should include the full tuition amount in the total support calculation. The scholarship portion counts as support provided by a third party (not by either you or your son). So when determining if you provided more than 50% of support, the formula would be: (Amount you paid) ÷ (Total support including full tuition) > 50% The "total support" denominator includes everything: full tuition (including scholarship portion), housing, food, medical, etc. from ALL sources.
Sophie Footman
3 What state do you live in? Some states have much stricter penalties for late filing than the federal government. I got hit with a $100 minimum penalty in California even though I was only late by a month and owed less than $200 in state taxes.
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Sophie Footman
•17 This is actually a really good point. I'm in New York and they hit me with penalties even when the federal government didn't. Check your state's department of revenue website - some states offer first-time penalty abatement if you've had a good filing history before this.
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Sophie Footman
9 Don't panic! I filed 3 years of back taxes last summer and it was way less scary than I thought. For your W2s, you can get wage and income transcripts directly from the IRS website by creating an account at irs.gov/transcripts - it's free and shows everything that was reported to the IRS under your SSN. You can still use regular tax software for prior years (they usually sell previous year versions), but you'll have to mail in the return rather than e-file. Just be super clear that it's for tax year 2022 on all the forms. I highly recommend getting it done ASAP though - if you're owed a refund, there's no penalty, but if you end up owing anything, the penalties and interest continue to grow.
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