Posts made by cpaynter

I’m confused. It says “Enter code at Kohls.com to receive discount.”. What’s the code?

TheraBreath.com
Regarding Your Recent Order
Dear cpaynter,

You recently ordered a Fresh Breath Experience Kit from TheraBreath.com. Unfortunately, that kit was an exclusive offer only to customers of specific, authorized websites. You ordered via an unauthorized “deal” website and so, we cannot honor your purchase.

Your credit card has not been charged and your order has been voided. Any funds authorization made on your credit card will automatically drop off within three business days depending on your bank’s policies. We are sorry for any inconvenience.

Thank you,

TheraBreath Customer Service
1-800-973-7374

Sadly, it appears this deal is not for me. There are 10 Burger Kings within 9 miles of my work. Not a single one of them supports mobile ordering. Similarly, there are a dozen Burger King locations within 9 miles of my house. Not a single one of them supports mobile ordering. 😥

I live in the northwest Chicago suburbs, fwiw. Does BK marketing consider that having promos like this with such a pathetic coverage for mobile ordering actually drives business away from them to the competition?

Any confirmation that you actually earned 5%? My experience is that the category listed on the transaction is not a reliable indicator of how it qualifies for rewards.

Chris.

No go for me on combining RMN999 and PIZZA15. “OOPS. The promo code you entered cannot be applied with the existing promo in your cart.” 😥

Thanks for the heads up. Went yesterday, bought a small frosty for $.50, got a free single, which was great, BTW. Will alternate this with the McDonald’s app offer. Apologize to my arteries later. Does this offer have a set end date?

Chris.

Been faithfully using this every day since the start of July, but as of this morning, my deal now reads 1x per week. 😮😯😕. Party over for anyone else?

Chris.

@ctcarl said in McDonald's - $1 Sandwich w/ App - Excludes Signature Crafted and Double Quarter Pounder w/Cheese - Valid 1x/day through 9/30/18:

Tried this out today…Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Sandwich and a soda for two bucks. w00t!

The only issue I ran into is that the app is very permission-greedy, and I don’t want McDonalds (or anyone else, for that matter) knowing precisely where I am every minute of every day.

I disabled Location Services for the app and picked the restaurant location manually, and it seemed to work, gave me an order #, etc. But since it never “saw” me arrive, it never released my order to the restaurant, and they couldn’t pull it up.

I finally enabled Location and the app said “Oh, you’re here!” and released my order. Long story short, you can disable other permissions…to keep Ronald’s red nose out of your address book, for example…but unless you enable Location Services, “no soup for you!”

Agree with you about the buttermilk chicken sandwich. I would compare it quite favorably to a Chick-fil-A sandwich. And for a dollar, I can actually afford it! After five days of the buttermilk chicken, I decided to go off book and try a QPC. It was fine, but I think tomorrow I’m back to the buttermilk chicken.

I’m in the “I don’t really give a rip what McDonald’s knows about me and my habits” if they’re going to keep feeding me lunch for a buck.

Chris

Is this deal over? I don’t see the gift card offer. Maybe I’m just stupid.

Chris.

@fasttimes said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

On a personal note, I find this plan to be disgraceful. I don’t need a tax cut. The wealthy certainly don’t need a tax cut. It boggles the mind that people who make 50k a year still support Trump. I heard on the radio the average “savings” for people under 75k a year is $18 a week. Don’t spend it all in one place.

I’m glad you’re flush enough to not need a tax break. I’ll say it, I need a tax break. I’m tapped out. And instead I get a $250 tax increase. I’ll gladly take $18 over a $250 increase.

@principalmember said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@cpaynter said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@redmed said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@cpaynter said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@principalmember said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

There has been a lot of crying about the property tax/state income taxes being limited to 10K (effectively can’t even do it since you need a big mortgage to overcome the 24K std deduction). But personally, for the high earners, not being able to deduct state income tax may be wash since the new rates are lower at the higher end.

Sure, for the high earners it’s great. But for those of us <$160k AGI, we’re seeing our taxes increased. I thought this was supposed to be a tax break for the middle class? What’s middle class now, a minimum of $200k?

Waa Waa Waa The rich get more benefit from the tax break! The rich pay more taxes, so of course they are going to benefit more from any tax break. Instead have every citizen pay the same amount regardless of income. That would the most fair.

Absolutely, I agree. Despite what demagogues would have you believe, the rich really do pay the majority of income taxes. So it stands to reason that with any tax cut, the rich will benefit more because they are paying more. And I’m perfectly comfortable with that.

So if a bill were to give a tax break to the higher earners and leave the rest of us out, I’d be fine with that. But when the higher earners are getting a tax break, and many of us in the lower ranges are getting a tax increase, I’m sorry, that sucks.

What really sticks in my craw is that this is being billed as a “tax cut” and a “tax simplification” when for me in the middle it is anything but.

And it also irks me that the bill in its earlier incarnation truly did provide tax cuts across the board and true simplification, significantly reducing the number of brackets even as it did away with the state income tax deduction. Then at the last moment, they screwed it up, returning to a dizzying number of brackets and putting in place the idiotic $10k SALT limitation, which is a mess.

I’d be thrilled with a tax system that was more flat, as you suggested. If not a flat $ amount, then at least a flat rate. But IMHO, this bill brings us further away from flatness.

What we ended up with was:
Tax cut = FAIL
Tax simplification = FAIL

Chris.

As far as I concerned, it is not a fail on “simplification”. Whether they have 10 brackets or 50 brackets, computers can calculate that in less than a second. But they have eliminated the AMT for most people and that is nice - you don’t have to compute taxes using a parallel universe. Also by raising standard deduction and limiting deductions, they will force a lot more people into standard deduction. At least I won’t be fumbling and looking for my property tax statements, charitable contribution receipts and so on.

Agreed that the effects are highly personalized. I should have clarified that the “we” in “What we ended up with” was me and my wife, and the many others in our position. For those for whom the AMT was a constant threat, they can certainly breathe a sigh of relief. That was never me. For those couples who didn’t itemize, or itemized for less than $24k, this is great. For me, I still have to fumble and look for my property tax statements, charitable contribution receipts and so on. Only now, I get even less payback for my fumbling. Partly because my SALT deductions are restricted, but also because the gap between the standard deduction and my itemized deductions is smaller. Still large enough to make a difference, but less buck for the bang. Now for all that extra fumbling, I’m getting an additional $16k of deduction, instead of $32k. So I get half the benefit for the same amount of work.

I appreciate your earlier suggestion of alternating charitable contributions between years to maximize the standard deduction. Not a bad plan, but much of my contribution consists of obligations I’ve made to periodic (weekly or monthly) contributions. For those cases, I really don’t want to go back to the model of making occasional large contributions. But the fact that I have to consider those kind of plays means, to me, that our system is too complicated.

Chris.

@meed18 said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

According to Market Watch’s calculator, my federal tax total will go down $912. However, if I didn’t have a child eligible for the $2k child tax credit, my tax would go up $188.

MFJ with AGI ~$110k and $21k in itemized deductions.

Yes, you’re right. This bill is great for the breeders.

Chris.

@redmed said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@cpaynter said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@principalmember said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

There has been a lot of crying about the property tax/state income taxes being limited to 10K (effectively can’t even do it since you need a big mortgage to overcome the 24K std deduction). But personally, for the high earners, not being able to deduct state income tax may be wash since the new rates are lower at the higher end.

Sure, for the high earners it’s great. But for those of us <$160k AGI, we’re seeing our taxes increased. I thought this was supposed to be a tax break for the middle class? What’s middle class now, a minimum of $200k?

Waa Waa Waa The rich get more benefit from the tax break! The rich pay more taxes, so of course they are going to benefit more from any tax break. Instead have every citizen pay the same amount regardless of income. That would the most fair.

Absolutely, I agree. Despite what demagogues would have you believe, the rich really do pay the majority of income taxes. So it stands to reason that with any tax cut, the rich will benefit more because they are paying more. And I’m perfectly comfortable with that.

So if a bill were to give a tax break to the higher earners and leave the rest of us out, I’d be fine with that. But when the higher earners are getting a tax break, and many of us in the lower ranges are getting a tax increase, I’m sorry, that sucks.

What really sticks in my craw is that this is being billed as a “tax cut” and a “tax simplification” when for me in the middle it is anything but.

And it also irks me that the bill in its earlier incarnation truly did provide tax cuts across the board and true simplification, significantly reducing the number of brackets even as it did away with the state income tax deduction. Then at the last moment, they screwed it up, returning to a dizzying number of brackets and putting in place the idiotic $10k SALT limitation, which is a mess.

I’d be thrilled with a tax system that was more flat, as you suggested. If not a flat $ amount, then at least a flat rate. But IMHO, this bill brings us further away from flatness.

What we ended up with was:
Tax cut = FAIL
Tax simplification = FAIL

Chris.

@principalmember said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@cpaynter said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@principalmember said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

No, married filing jointly. Our itemized deductions total up to about $44k, SALT is only $14k of that. Even with the $10k SALT limitation, we’ll still be at around $40k in deductions, so much higher than the $24k standard deduction for MFJ.

Chris.

Sorry not understanding. So if SALT caps you at 10K and you have a 120K house, how do yo get 44K in deduction?

Charitable contributions.

So you contribute about 30K in charitable contribution and you are complaining about tax increase? Think of it as another charitable contribution - just distributed to every US tax payer. You have my thanks!

LOL. Not quite that generous.

Prop tax 9200
State tax 4600
Mortgage interest about 6k (refi’d to lower interest rate at end of year and paid down points)
Charitable about 24k

Also, I execute due diligence and research potential recipient organizations. I look for organizations that are engaged in empowering under-resourced communities around the world and propelling them toward long-term prosperity. I look for organizations which are well-run, efficient at using contributions, have low overhead and reasonable executive pay and are laser-focused on their mission. Sorry, but the US government falls so so short.

@principalmember said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

No, married filing jointly. Our itemized deductions total up to about $44k, SALT is only $14k of that. Even with the $10k SALT limitation, we’ll still be at around $40k in deductions, so much higher than the $24k standard deduction for MFJ.

Chris.

Sorry not understanding. So if SALT caps you at 10K and you have a 120K house, how do yo get 44K in deduction?

Charitable contributions.

@gwraigty said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@cpaynter said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

There are several and most of them suck. Here’s one that’s good: New tax calculator
I actually rolled my own using a spreadsheet and the information (brackets and deduction info) I could glean from news articles. Then I double-checked against this calculator and it matched.

This tax calculator may be OK, but it doesn’t take into account investment income that qualifies for preferential capital gains rates. A bit of adjustment to account for that might be in order.

True, but this one is much better that the brain-dead ones I’ve seen that ask “What is your income?” “Are you single or married?” “How many kids do you have?” and “What state do you live in?” and then report “You get a tax break!” or “You’ll owe more taxes!”

Chris.

Aside from the fairness of capping SALT at $10k (and I can see both sides of that issue, even though I’m being hurt by it), wasn’t part of this bill supposed to be tax simplification? Seems like the $10k limitation is a serious complication.

Take taxability of state income tax refunds. State tax refunds are taxable. This makes sense. In April 2017, I filed federal and state taxes for TY 2016. I had to calculate federal taxes first, since the state form requires me to transfer over AGI and other figures from my federal return. So when I’m calculating my 2016 federal return, I don’t know exactly what my 2016 state taxes are going to be. The only number I have to go on is the total state tax that was deducted from my paychecks, let’s say $4,500. So my federal tax is calculated based on that. Then I file my state form and after state deductions, I end up with a state tax of $4,000. Lucky me, I get a $500 refund from the state, and I receive that check in May 2017. When I fill out my taxes in April 2018, I have to include that state refund check as income for 2017, because I had already deducted that much as state taxes from my TY 2016 federal taxes. That’s the way it’s always been, and it makes sense.

Under this stupid new $10k limitation, this changes (or at least it should). If the $500 was part of the amount over $10k that I was prevented from deducting the previous year, then that refund shouldn’t be taxed again. OTOH, if the $10k limitation didn’t crimp me the previous year, then the whole refund is taxable. What if my total SALT the previous year was $10269.54? Well, then $230.46 of my state refund is taxable and $269.54 is free from tax.

Much simpler than just having state income tax refunds being taxable, right?

Chris.

@principalmember said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@cpaynter said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@principalmember said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

Those people who had their AMT deduction mostly wiped out may benefit nicely from this bill. Basically, they had their deductions wiped out - i.e. no property tax/state income tax deduction and then they were paying 26%+28% with no AMT exemption. However, with the new bill, they get 24K in deduction and gradual tax rate versus the 26%. Just for grins example calculation - 2017 income: $500,000. Under the old AMT system, AMT exemption wiped out and $136K in taxes. Using the calculator above, it is 118K - almost 18K lower. [This excludes mortgage interest - so if you had a large mortgage, the savings would be lower.

There has been a lot of crying about the property tax/state income taxes being limited to 10K (effectively can’t even do it since you need a big mortgage to overcome the 24K std deduction). But personally, for the high earners, not being able to deduct state income tax may be wash since the new rates are lower at the higher end.

Fortunately for me, I never bought into, “Buy a big house for the mortgage / property tax deduction” - so things might be in really solid shape.

I never bought into the “buy a big house for the deduction” crap either. I just bought a reasonably-sized house for ~120k in a place near where I worked, which unfortunately happened to be Illinois.

Yes, it’s the income/property tax limitation that’s killing me. State income tax around 4600, property tax around 9200. What’s maddening is that last month, when the plan was to eliminate the state income tax deduction entirely, but leave property tax deductible, I was actually saving money on that plan, even though I was losing a full 4600 of deductibility. With the $10k rule, I’m actually getting $800 more deduction than last month’s plan, but the brackets have been sufficiently shifted so I get shafted.

I am presuming that you are single - else you will pretty much be taking the 24K standard deduction.

No, married filing jointly. Our itemized deductions total up to about $44k, SALT is only $14k of that. Even with the $10k SALT limitation, we’ll still be at around $40k in deductions, so much higher than the $24k standard deduction for MFJ.

Chris.

@gwraigty said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@cpaynter said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

But for those of us <$160k AGI, we’re seeing our taxes increased.

No, not everyone. Our AGI is <$160K and - as I said above - our taxes are going to be $2,300 less than under current law.

YMMV if you are losing itemized deductions and usually claim more than 4 personal exemptions. Neither is the case for our family.

Making generalized statements without delving into the details helps no one.

Point taken, but my response wasn’t general, it was specifically to principalmember’s comment that the $10k SALT limitation wasn’t a big deal because high earners will reap the benefits of lower rates at the higher brackets. My answer to that is that sure, for high earners those lower rates do help. But for us lower earners who are subject to the $10k limitation, we feel the brunt of it because the brackets don’t help us at our income level (and it only gets worse as your income goes further down).

I also neglected to comment on principalmember’s remark that you “need a big mortgage to overcome the $24k standard deduction”. I have a $170k mortgage, which I don’t think is that big. My total itemized deductions are $44k. If all I had was local taxes and mortgage interest, then I’d do great under the new law, because my itemized deductions would be under $24k and I’d claim the $24k standard deduction which would help me.

As for personal exemptions, we only have two; one for me and one for DW. The loss of those raises our taxable income $8,100 which is huge.

Chris.

@principalmember said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

There has been a lot of crying about the property tax/state income taxes being limited to 10K (effectively can’t even do it since you need a big mortgage to overcome the 24K std deduction). But personally, for the high earners, not being able to deduct state income tax may be wash since the new rates are lower at the higher end.

Sure, for the high earners it’s great. But for those of us <$160k AGI, we’re seeing our taxes increased. I thought this was supposed to be a tax break for the middle class? What’s middle class now, a minimum of $200k?

@principalmember said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

Those people who had their AMT deduction mostly wiped out may benefit nicely from this bill. Basically, they had their deductions wiped out - i.e. no property tax/state income tax deduction and then they were paying 26%+28% with no AMT exemption. However, with the new bill, they get 24K in deduction and gradual tax rate versus the 26%. Just for grins example calculation - 2017 income: $500,000. Under the old AMT system, AMT exemption wiped out and $136K in taxes. Using the calculator above, it is 118K - almost 18K lower. [This excludes mortgage interest - so if you had a large mortgage, the savings would be lower.

There has been a lot of crying about the property tax/state income taxes being limited to 10K (effectively can’t even do it since you need a big mortgage to overcome the 24K std deduction). But personally, for the high earners, not being able to deduct state income tax may be wash since the new rates are lower at the higher end.

Fortunately for me, I never bought into, “Buy a big house for the mortgage / property tax deduction” - so things might be in really solid shape.

I never bought into the “buy a big house for the deduction” crap either. I just bought a reasonably-sized house for ~120k in a place near where I worked, which unfortunately happened to be Illinois.

Yes, it’s the income/property tax limitation that’s killing me. State income tax around 4600, property tax around 9200. What’s maddening is that last month, when the plan was to eliminate the state income tax deduction entirely, but leave property tax deductible, I was actually saving money on that plan, even though I was losing a full 4600 of deductibility. With the $10k rule, I’m actually getting $800 more deduction than last month’s plan, but the brackets have been sufficiently shifted so I get shafted.

@dionaea said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

Is there a site you can do the comparison - enter last year’s tax return figures and this year’s tax return figures based on the new tax bill boondoggle? I’m not sure we’ll be affected as we’re both retired and on SS with Medicare, prescription insurance and supplemental insurance plans, income of about $28,800/year, standard deductions. However, I know a lot of working people who itemize and who will be negatively affected by this, either now or in a few years when the small breaks given to ordinary taxpayers will expire.

There are several and most of them suck. Here’s one that’s good: New tax calculator

I actually rolled my own using a spreadsheet and the information (brackets and deduction info) I could glean from news articles. Then I double-checked against this calculator and it matched.

Running through what you’ve disclosed, I calculate you’d owe abut $480 in taxes, which I’ll bet is a lot less than what you’ve been paying. Lucky you.

Chris.

@gwraigty said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

Using our YTD figures, our federal taxes will go down by over $2,300.

We live in a LCOL area. We don’t itemize. The doubling of the standard deduction is more beneficial than the current personal exemptions we can take. Ordinary income that was taxed in the 15% tax bracket will be taxed at 12%, while ordinary income that was taxed in the 25% tax bracket will be taxed at 22%. LTCG bracket remains the same at 15%. HSA deduction increases in 2018 due to the ability to make $1000 catch-up contribution.

Ah, there’s the rub. If you don’t already itemize, the increased standard deduction is a huge win. I have $44k in itemized deductions, so the increased standard deduction does me squat. We feel the full brunt of the $8100 eliminated exemption. And since $14k of my itemized deductions is comprised of property and state income taxes, I end up losing another $4k in deductions, meaning my taxable income increases by $12k over current. The change in the brackets helps me some, but is more than overcome by the increase in TI. 😾

Glad it’s working for you, though.

Hoping this doesn’t devolve into political haranguing and sticks to dollars and cents.

I’m frustrated that my personal taxes will be going up over $250 a year with this tax “cut.”

I scored the version that passed last month and determined it would barely affect me; about a $20 savings per year for me.

But the revisions to the bill since then have reversed that by about $270, so a tax increase of about $250 versus current tax law.

Anyone else scored their taxes with the bill about to be passed and willing to share their results?

Chris.