As a newcomer to this community, I have to say reading through all these experiences is both eye-opening and deeply concerning. I'm dealing with my first amended return situation - filed in August to correct a missed education credit, and I'm currently at the 15-week mark with zero movement on the "Where's My Amended Return" tool. What strikes me most about all these stories is how consistent the dysfunction appears to be across the board. Whether it's simple calculation errors, missed deductions, or education credits, everyone seems to be facing the same 6-8 month nightmare regardless of how straightforward their correction should be. The fact that multiple people have found success through congressional intervention really says something about how broken the normal customer service channels have become. It shouldn't require political pressure just to get basic information about the status of your own tax return. I'm definitely going to start implementing some of the strategies mentioned here - checking my transcript regularly for specific codes, documenting all my interactions with IRS customer service, and potentially reaching out to my representative's office if I hit the 20+ week mark with no progress. Thanks to everyone for sharing their experiences and solutions. It's frustrating that we need to become amateur tax code investigators and political advocates just to get our own money back from the government, but at least we're not navigating this mess alone.

As someone new to this community, I'm both grateful and horrified to find this thread. I filed my amended return in September to correct a missed dependent exemption, and I'm currently at the 12-week mark. After reading everyone's experiences here, I'm already preparing myself for what looks like it could be a 6-8 month ordeal instead of the "standard" 20 weeks the IRS advertises. What's particularly frustrating is that this should be a straightforward correction - I have all the proper documentation for my dependent, but somehow missed including them on my original return. It's not a complex tax situation requiring extensive investigation, yet based on what I'm seeing here, I should expect the same bureaucratic nightmare everyone else is facing. I'm definitely going to start implementing the strategies mentioned throughout this thread right away: checking my transcript regularly for specific processing codes, keeping a detailed log of every interaction with IRS customer service, and having my congressional representative's contact information ready for when (not if) I need to escalate. It's absolutely insane that taxpayers need to become amateur investigators and political advocates just to get basic customer service from a federal agency, but thank you all for sharing your experiences and solutions. At least now I know what I'm up against and have a roadmap for navigating this broken system.

Has anyone with a similar situation looked into how the QBI phase-out thresholds might affect this decision? As a physician, OP is in a specified service trade or business, so QBI phases out at higher income levels. Wondering if structuring as S-corp vs sole prop affects how those thresholds are calculated.

This is a great discussion! I'm actually a tax professional who works with a lot of physicians in similar situations. A few additional considerations that might help with your decision: 1. **State taxes matter**: If you're in a state with high income taxes, the S-corp structure might provide additional benefits since you'll avoid state income tax on the self-employment tax portion. 2. **Bookkeeping complexity**: S-corps require more formal bookkeeping, payroll processing, and quarterly filings. Make sure to factor in these additional costs when comparing structures. 3. **Timing flexibility**: With a sole prop, you have more flexibility in when you recognize income and expenses. With an S-corp, you're locked into paying yourself that reasonable compensation throughout the year. 4. **Future scalability**: If you plan to expand your moonlighting or add employees, an S-corp structure might be easier to scale. Given your numbers ($200k W-2 + $150k business income), you're likely in the QBI phase-out range, which actually makes the S-corp structure more attractive since you'll get less QBI benefit anyway. The self-employment tax savings of roughly $11,475 on $75k of distributions would probably outweigh the reduced QBI deduction. Have you considered whether your employer has any restrictions on outside business activities that might affect your choice of structure?

What tax software are you guys using for business + personal combo situations? I've been using TurboTax but it seems to get confused when I try to offset my business losses against capital gains.

One thing to keep in mind is the timing of when you can actually use those business losses. If your business is subject to the "at-risk" rules or "passive activity loss" limitations, you might not be able to use all the losses in the current tax year, even if they would otherwise offset your capital gains. Also, make sure you're properly categorizing your capital gains - long-term vs short-term makes a difference for tax rates, but both can generally be offset by ordinary business losses. Short-term capital gains are taxed as ordinary income anyway, so the offset is straightforward. Long-term gains get preferential rates, but business losses can still reduce them dollar-for-dollar. Since you mentioned significant gains and losses, you might want to consider whether it makes sense to realize additional gains or losses before year-end to optimize your tax situation. Just be careful about wash sale rules if you're thinking about selling and repurchasing similar securities.

Not sure if anyone mentioned this, but there are some exceptions to the estimated tax penalty! If your total tax minus withholding is less than $1,000, you won't face a penalty. Also, if you had no tax liability last year (a 12-month period), you can avoid penalties regardless of this year's situation. And sometimes the IRS will waive penalties for reasonable cause like natural disasters or other unusual circumstances.

Just wanted to add my experience here! I was in almost the exact same situation last year - both my spouse and I are W2 employees and we underpaid significantly. We ended up making a January 15th estimated payment, but honestly wish we had known about the W-4 strategy earlier. The January payment did help reduce our penalty, but we still owed some because the IRS calculates penalties quarterly. If you still have paychecks coming before year-end, definitely consider increasing your withholding through a new W-4 first - that's the best way to completely avoid penalties since it's treated as paid evenly throughout the year. Also, double-check if you qualify for any of the safe harbors mentioned. We found out we could have paid just 100% of our prior year's tax liability (since our AGI was under $150k) rather than trying to estimate our current year's liability, which made the calculation much simpler.

I've been dealing with a similar situation with multiple K-1s from various investment platforms. One approach that's worked well for me is using TurboTax's "Interview Mode" rather than "Forms Mode" when entering K-1s. In Interview Mode, TurboTax asks you questions about your investments and can handle multiple entries more efficiently. When you get to the partnership section, there's an option to "Add Another Partnership" that maintains context from your previous entries, so you don't have to re-enter common information like your personal details. Also, before you start entering data, I'd recommend sorting your K-1s by the boxes that contain information. Many startup K-1s only have entries in boxes 1, 11, and 20, so you can group them and enter similar ones consecutively. This reduces the mental switching between different types of entries. One last tip: TurboTax Premier has a feature called "Easy Entry" for investments that can handle multiple similar entries more efficiently than the standard interface. It's not prominently advertised, but you can access it through the investment income section.

As someone who's been through this exact nightmare with 60+ K-1s from various crowdfunding platforms, I feel your pain! Here's what finally worked for me after years of trial and error: First, upgrade to TurboTax Premier if you haven't already - the basic versions just can't handle this volume efficiently. Second, before you start entering anything, create a simple spreadsheet where you categorize all your K-1s by the types of entries they contain. Most startup K-1s follow similar patterns (ordinary income in Box 1, Section 199A info in Box 20, etc.). The game-changer for me was using TurboTax's "batch entry" approach in the partnerships section. After entering your first complete K-1, look for the "Similar to Previous" option when adding the next one. This copies the structure and you just update the amounts and company info. Also, don't overlook TurboTax's import feature for investment statements - while it doesn't work directly with Angellist CSVs, you can sometimes format your data to match what TurboTax expects for bulk import. One warning: be extra careful with your Section 199A deductions across multiple K-1s. TurboTax sometimes miscalculates these when you have many partnerships, so double-check that total manually.