Another option you might consider - check if your wife's mom received a physical copy of the 1095-A in the mail. Sometimes people miss these forms in their mail since they look like regular healthcare notices. The marketplace typically mails them out by late January/early February. Also, if you can't get the form in time, you could file an extension to give yourself more time to track it down. Just remember an extension to file isn't an extension to pay, so you'd still need to estimate and pay any taxes due by the regular deadline.

Just wanted to point out something important - if your wife was covered under her mom's marketplace plan, but her mom claimed the premium tax credit, you actually DO need to report this on your taxes. This is because the IRS needs to verify that everyone who received subsidized coverage is accounted for across all tax returns. It's confusing because your wife was on her mom's plan, but since you're filing a separate return from her mom, the IRS system flags the disconnect when it doesn't see the 1095-A information on your return.

For anyone considering DIY filing, I built a simple spreadsheet that helped me track everything for my ERTC claim. It has separate tabs for each quarter, wage calculations, PPP allocation, and the revenue comparison test. Happy to share if anyone wants it - just DM me. The whole process took me about 3 weekends to complete, but I saved around $32,000 compared to what a "specialist" company wanted to charge me. The IRS isn't processing these quickly (took 11 months to get my refund), but it was worth the wait.

Does anyone know the deadline for filing these ERTC claims? I heard it was extended but not sure until when.

Just want to add something important that nobody's mentioned yet - if you're filing a prior year return AND you owe money, you should file ASAP to minimize penalties and interest! The failure-to-file penalty is usually 5% of unpaid taxes for each month your return is late (up to 25%), while the failure-to-pay penalty is much smaller at 0.5% per month. Also, check if you qualify for "first-time penalty abatement" - if you haven't had any penalties in the prior 3 years, the IRS might waive your late-filing penalties. I saved over $400 this way!

Dont forget that if youre getting a REFUND for your 2023 taxes, you have until April 15, 2027 to file and still get your money back!! But if you OWE money, your already accumulating penalties and interest. The IRS doesn't care about unfiled returns that owe them $0 or that they owe YOU money for.

Anyone else planning to amend previous returns in light of this Limited Partner Self Employment exemption ruling? My accountant says we should go back and amend the last three years, but I'm worried that would just trigger an audit.

For anyone wondering about the Limited Partner Self Employment exemption ruling, I consulted with a former IRS attorney yesterday. He believes the ruling will likely stand on appeal because it's based on a functional interpretation of the statute rather than adding new requirements. His take is that anyone who was truly a passive investor with no management role might still have grounds to exclude income from SE tax. The real targets are active participants using the LP structure primarily as a tax strategy despite material participation in the business. He suggested documenting your lack of involvement if you want to maintain the exemption - meeting minutes showing you don't participate in management decisions, time logs showing minimal hours, etc.

One practical reason the effective tax rate matters: understanding your true tax burden helps with budgeting throughout the year. When I was looking at withholdings from my paycheck, I kept thinking "why are they taking only 15% when I'm in the 22% bracket?" The answer was that my effective rate was actually around 15%. This helped me adjust my withholdings more accurately so I wouldn't get a huge refund (basically an interest-free loan to the government) or owe a bunch at tax time. Knowing your effective rate lets you more accurately plan your actual take-home pay!

The way I explain tax rates vs effective rates to my friends: imagine you have 5 buckets. - First bucket (up to $11,000): taxed at 10% - Second bucket ($11,001-$44,725): taxed at 12% - Third bucket ($44,726-$95,375): taxed at 22% ...and so on Your dollars "fill up" each bucket before moving to the next. So your first $11k is always taxed at 10%, no matter how much you make total. The effective rate is just the average rate across all your filled buckets combined. This is why getting a raise that "puts you in a higher bracket" only affects the dollars that actually reach that new bracket!