Money Management Tips
Money at 30: My 2023 Tax Filing Experience
Well, it’s here: Tax Day. Traditionally, this day has fallen on April 15th but — between that date falling on the weekend this year and something to do with D.C. — the official deadline has fallen on the 18th for the past few years. Naturally, despite this mild extension, I waited until *checks watch* last night to get my return in order.
So, how did this procrastination work out for me in terms of meeting the deadline? Let’s take a look at my experience prepping and filing my 2022 tax return.
4 Takeaways from My 2023 Tax Day Experience
4 Takeaways from My 2023 Tax Day Experience
Keeping up with Quickbooks
At this point, having used Quickbooks for the past several years, I have several “rules” programmed to automatically sort my personal and business transactions. Yet, there is always a need to manually go through some purchases and categorize them. I’ve often tried to keep on top of this but, alas, I once again fell behind. Thus, my 2023 tax day journey began with this task.
The good news is that this didn’t take too long. What’s more, while I did add a credit card to my mix in 2022, my Bilt Mastercard had already populated in Quickbooks since it’s issued by Wells Fargo and linked to my account there. This made things much easier… even if the whole thing was a bit tedious. Still, that’s my fault so I’ll deal with it.
Navigating a new employment status
My 2022 tax return is a bit different from the past few years for one key reason. Last year, one of my 1099 gigs transitioned into a W-2 one — albeit a part-time one, so my health care wasn’t impacted. Funny enough, while my wife previously had W-2 and 1099 income, that stopped being the case in 2022, so we effectively swapped places.
Luckily, this change didn’t really mean much for the filing process in my experience. However, it did definitely help keep the amount of taxes I owed for the year down since, for the first time in a long time, I have automatic withholdings. Then again, the ease does make me slightly worry that I did something wrong, but let’s just hope for the best, shall we?
Clocking in
When I opened up TurboTax to begin my filing in earnest, I was greeted with a pop-up announcing I was in “RaceMode.” I didn’t realize I was supposed to rush through doing my taxes nor did I quite see how this mode did anything but added a running clock to the top of the page — but whatever. Thanks to that running clock, though, I can tell you that it took me under two hours from the time I imported my Quickbooks data until I was ready to E-file my returns.
In my opinion, that’s not bad. What’s more, I probably could have cut that time down even more if I had a better grasp on navigating the platform… or just didn’t leave the tab open while stepping away. Regardless, I’m pleased with my time even if the point of the “RaceMode” concept still alludes me.
Future content!
Although I owed federal taxes per usual, I was surprised to discover that the state of Missouri owed me a hundred dollars. Thanks to this welcome development, I was also able to see some Intuit synergy at work! When asked how I’d like to receive my refund, TurboTax recommended I have it directly deposited into a Credit Karma Money Spend account. Imagine that. Originally, I just rolled my eyes at this suggestion — but then I realized that this is actually my job and content is good so I went ahead and tried it.
According to the site, with this option, customers can get their refund “up to 5 days early.” With the other direct deposit option noting that 9 out of 10 customers see arrivals within 21 days, I guess that means that I could get my C-note within 16 days.
Since I already have Credit Karma Money account, Intuit was able to pull up my info easily. Plus, with my accounts linked, I can now track my return in Credit Karma. As for whether I’ll actually see my money any sooner, that’s hard to say since I’m not comparing it again another option. That said, I’ll be sure to share my overall experience using this feature in the future.
All things considered, my experience preparing and filing my 2022 tax return was pretty positive. It also reminded me why I continue to use Quickbooks and TurboTax. Even though I’d love to explore other options, there’s no denying that the combination does make it easy to get everything in order quickly, especially as the length of time I’ve been using them grows. As for what Tax Day 2024 holds for me — and whether or not I’ll actually get my return done before the last minute — remains to be seen but, if it’s anything like this year’s (so far), I’ll be quite pleased.
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