View Single Post
      03-01-2019, 06:17 PM   #121
RickFLM4
Brigadier General
RickFLM4's Avatar
United_States
10882
Rep
4,816
Posts

 
Drives: M4
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: PB County, FL

iTrader: (0)

Quote:
Originally Posted by NickyC View Post
Nope, unfortunately I saw zero. My accountant ran the numbers three times, he was very surprised.

The write offs he was referring to were mileage and travel for his job. If I remember correctly, the problem is that he's a W2 and was paid mileage and travel by his employer in his regular pay check. By losing the deductions, it was all taxed as regular income so he got smoked both ways. The accountant advised him to work with his employer going forward, and to be paid straight pay for his expenses going forward outside of his regular paycheck.

I'm not sure I got that all correct, but my accountant mentioned clearly that very few people were happy with the way things were going tax wise this year. I'm in Missouri, which is solid red country, and people are not happy about this at all.
Well hopefully the reason you didn’t see a benefit from 199A is because you made too much money and it got phased out...

With respect to the mileage for the W2 guy, my understanding is that the only way he should have been able to deduct it previously is if he wasn’t reimbursed. Now he can’t deduct it whether reimbursed or not. So perhaps he was taking a deduction he shouldn’t have previously. He also shouldn’t be taxed on employer expense reimbursements. He should go back to his employer this year and get it corrected. If he didn’t get reimbursed, then yes he lost a deduction.

I do think self employed people who used to underpay their self-employment tax by paying themselves a salary (subject to self employment tax) and treating any earnings above the salary (not subject to self employment tax) as a distribution may be losing that “strategy” (which was really never allowed anyway even if people got away with it). I’ve always (grudgingly) paid the full amount due so not feeling too bad for anyone that got stuck paying their full share now, but expect they will be unhappy.

There was a lot of reporting that refunds were lower this year early on. Aside from being entirely the wrong way to think about taxes, that has now reversed and they are slightly higher this year. So the reporting about it stopped. I think there is a lot of anecdotal story reporting that influence opinions. It worked out well for us and expect it should for most people.
__________________
Current: 2018 SO/SS F83 ZCP
Gone: 2015 SO/SO F82