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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   3591 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 13, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Does anyone else get really fucking angry at the way the 1040 lumps capital gains in with ordinary income, then makes you do an entire separate and needlessly convoluted process to separate them back out?
Literally just change the steps to put long term cap gains and qualified dividends in their own box on the 1040, it could be so much easier!

Yes, I am finishing my taxes tonight. If I wait till the last second the feds don't earn any interest on my payment.

Or what's even more infuriating is that, while you're sweating over capital gains and qualified dividends and 1099s and Schedule Ds and whatnot, low-earning households don't even need to file in order to continue living off your tax dollars. You have the privilege of cautiously filing your taxes to subsidize them, lest you be imprisoned—or worse, audited.

TBF they do need to file if they want the eitc. Which hilariously enough I qualified for this year thanks to a lot of loss harvesting

Or how qualified dividends are included in your ordinary dividends, which are included in your taxable income at the bottom, only for the worksheet you’re required to use to take the qualified dividends back out to apply different rates to qualified dividends and the rest of your income.

It's annoying, but in the end implementing the Qualified Dividends and Capital Gain Tax Worksheet (or the Schedule D Tax Worksheet) in your preferred spreadsheet program is the work of only a few minutes.

Fyi, you can file early and pay at a later date.

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