I just received an email from FTU about new terms, and saw mention of "arbitration", which never sounds like a good thing.

Apparently there appears to be an option to "opt-out", but there is a time-limit to do so.

https://www.freetaxusa.com/freefile2025/terms/ Section 31.

A snippet of the email:

New arbitration agreement. We've added an arbitration agreement to our Terms of Use. In plain terms:

Most disputes between you and TaxHawk will now be resolved through binding individual arbitration rather than in court.

You are giving up the right to a jury trial and the right to participate in a class action for covered disputes.

Before starting arbitration, either side must first send a written notice and allow 60 days to try to resolve the matter informally.

You can still bring a qualifying claim in small claims court.

Any future changes to these dispute-resolution terms won't be applied to a dispute you've already raised.

You can opt out of arbitration. If you don't want to be bound by the arbitration agreement, you must tell us within 45 days (or until October 16, 2026).

For context, I'm 21 but turn 22 in a couple weeks. 3 days before I turned 18 my mom and I moved to Australia and I worked there full time for just under 2 years before returning to the u.s.

I never filed taxes here or in australia, but I was recently told U.S. citizens have to pay taxes on foreign earned income unless they file to exempt it.

Is there anything in particular that I have to do now, or do I just start filing my taxes from here on? And am I about to be charged taxes for 2 years of full time income?

With the changes in repayment plans, I had to switch to a new income driven plan and my payment went up 3 fold essentially. Now I'm also kicked off forbearance so this payment starts this month. I'm curious about the pros and cons of switching to separate tax filing instead of doing joint with my spouse? It seems my income driven plan is going to continue to increase if my spouse and I continue to earn more over time since it's based on combined income. Would it benefit me to file separate in the spring and recertify my payment plan based on that tax info? This new payment amount is so drastic and I'm very concerned about not being able to afford it for very long. Any other ideas? I have like 90 payments to go still for my PSLF so at this rate, my payment is just going to get more expensive each year if we earn more.

Hello,

I have an individual whom is 100% owner of an S-Corp. As I logged in, it says he hasnt filed 1120S nor 1040 for at least since 2022 and possibly longer. What years need to be filed for? and which years should be filed for to avoid the IRS making additional trouble as I cant tell exactly how long he hasnt been filing for. The IRS hasnt sent any notices asking for tax returns as of yet.

Recently my cpa amended years prior state and federal taxes, today i got 3 letters from my state tax department, letters are for 2002 through 2024 state taxes, all have the same amount $25 and description, i have a hunch what it means but i want to confirm i do not owe taxes

State tax letter

Just got my SEPP setup and looking at doing my first withdraw this month. It is thru vanguard and they will with hold my Fed taxes. I did not expect they would not with hold my Colorado state taxes. I am assuming I will need to pay the state my estimated taxes for that withdraw.

My question is next year, I will take the withdraw at the same time. Will I need to pay quarterly state tax every quarter or can I pay it when I take the withdraw?

Suppose I contribute to a 529 plan (in NY, and take the state deduction, in case it matters) with myself as owner and beneficiary. What happens if/when I die? (My plan, should I survive, is to convert it to a Roth IRA, but that's a long time from now.)

Is it included in my taxable (federal and/or state) estate?

If it passes on to my surviving spouse as owner, who names our child as beneficiary, is that a taxable gift? If so, from whom?

(Assume we're past the annual and lifetime estate/gift tax exclusions.)

Hello.

My taxes are very simple every year, so I do them myself with TurboTax.

But this year, something has come up, and I need advice before I make any mistakes.

I have an "uncle" in Mexico who wishes to gift me $80,000. I call him uncle, but he is my mom's cousin. At first, I thought this would be a gift tax issue, but everything changed to a possible Form 3520 situation when I realized he is not a U.S. citizen or Resident Alien. I always thought he had a green card because his bank account is in the U.S.

So here are the details:

• He is a Mexican citizen, no U.S. Green Card or U.S. Citizenship.
• It would be $80,000, under the threshold for Form 3520
• The money is in his American bank account in Texas. He's had it for years, so he could invest in CDs and other investments.
  
• He would wire it to my bank account at my Credit Union.

So I'm worried my simple taxes will need an accountant next year because of the gift.

My questions are:

1. Will I have to, or should I, fill out Form 3520 with my taxes next year? I know it's under the threshold, but is it advisable to file it anyway, or is that just dumb?
2. Is there anything else I would need to fill out? The transaction is between American accounts.
3. If he wanted to do another gift next year, do I need to fill out any forms then? He actually wanted to make a bigger gift, but I wanted to avoid any reporting issues. But would that be considered structuring if he gave more money in a different tax year? He's getting on in years and he wanted to see his family enjoy his money. But it's made me nervous.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

It's been a messy year for my family, and my husband and I filed our taxes married filing jointly about a week late of the deadline. We initiated thru TurboTax, but could not remember our pin, so my husband printed it out and mailed it in. However, a few weeks later we received a notice in the mail that we did not sign our paper return. We signed the included document and uploaded it per instructions, but it has been over two months and our status has not changed online. No other correspondence from the IRS. I've tried calling but I get sent in circles with AI menus and no updates to our profile. Should I make an in-person appointment at my local IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center? Call a specific person? Hire a CPA?

Was unable to Efile a return for 2025 as someone had fraudulently claimed my son as a dependent (from a data breach). We printed and mailed our returns along with the ID theft docs. Later, I received a note that some information on my return was incorrect (one source of income was reported twice, meaning I was due a larger refund) and I provided a response to that effect. Shortly therafter, I received a note stating that the ID theft issue was resolved and IRS determined another party had fraudulently filed a return. Son was issued an ID Pin. I've called the Main number and my specific case managers phone number almost once a day for the last 2 months. I have never gotten through. At 701 AM the main IRS phone says they are too busy, call back tomorrow. and when I leave messages for my case manager, I never receive a return call.

I had filed an extension when all of this occurred, but the IRS owes me like $5k. What am I supposed to do? File an amended return? refile my original return?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi all, I’ve been running into trouble at tax time every year and I’m finally doing something about it. For the past couple of years my spouse and I have owned around $3K in federal taxes. We have always filed jointly.

I finally did some research and discovered the new W4 where you can now indicate that your spouse also works. Will checking that box likely take care of the issue or do I need to do the withholding math on my own? We also have one child and I’ve been claiming 0 dependents in an effort to increase withholding. Should I continue doing that?

I live in California. We’re switching payroll companies at work and I need to fill out a new Employee Withholdings Certificate. I haven’t filled out a withholding since I believe the old form. I file my taxes as “Married Filing Separately” due to student loans I accrued before I met my husband who is a much higher income earner. My last withholding seems to be in nearly a sweet spot. I didn’t get much back federally and owed like $75 to the state. I’d like to recreate that on this new form. My husband claims the kids and I make just shy of $70k. Any help would be greatly appreciated?

So to start off. I sent in my refund this year with turbo tax the same as every year previously through the same employer. However this year around March 15th I had gotten a notice of a “cpo5” from the irs stating that i had a delay for “60 days”. Come May 16th after the “60days” I reached out to the irs over the phone. The man I had spoke to stated that it would actually be 60 to 180 days from the letter received. Then today I contacted the IRS and was told that I would be expected to receive a second “cpo5 (a)” notice in about a week. However the woman I spoke to today after looking into my account stated that they had received two different w-2s from my employer. So as far as this has gone (8 months) now since originally filing. What steps should I take and what should I and my employer do to fix this situation??

Context: I work for a startup and have equity. We’re not a public company yet, but after our latest round of investing, longer tenured employees are being given the option to sell of some of their vested options as “secondaries”.

How are these typically taxed? If i sell some of these, ill be squirreling away a portion of it for the tax bill next year, but just wanted to know a little more

(this is based in texas) my dad bought his truck in his name after my parents were married. they're now trying to transfer the title to my mom. we were told to fill out the gift affidavit form but i noticed on there that it says for spouses to qualify the vehicle had to have previously been separate property. would my parents still need to fill out the gift affidavit?

Hey guys,

Like many of you here I can't reach a single real person. Long story short I have amended my 2024 tax return and received a check. I am currently on work assignment out of state so I had my friend mail it to me but never got to me. I am trying to find a way to submit a request to reissue a check. Is there a way I can do this without going through their retarded fake ass phone. Like sending mail and where would I send it?

Why is everyone so uptight about filling out a Form 709? The penalty if you don’t do it is literally 0. If you do it, you have to waste time and money. If you don’t, you MIGHT get caught but even if you do, so what? You wasted the IRS’ time which is a plus. I don’t get what the downside is. I read on here they don’t even check them anyway but if they investigate, let them waste their resources. I welcome it.

Please be patient and redirect me to the proper place for my question if this isn’t it. But:
I’m making 28$/hr at this new place, but my paycheck is cut short by almost 25% thanks to OASDI, Iowa state, Federal and Medicare. And this doesn’t sit right with me.
As a single guy with no kids, the only thing I can think of is during the onboarding process I marked that this was my second job back when I was working part time at a local grocery store. I’ve now dropped the grocery store job to have my weekends back, so would switching that back fix the issue?
The HR department for my job is fairly confusing to navigate in their system so I’m dreading reaching out to them

Hello, last year I had a brief job at a grocery store and was injured so I couldn't continue working. I decided to make some money off of art, kind of on and off since the start of 2026, but officially opening commisison work in August (last month). Recently learned there are quarterly payments I mightve needed to pay this whole time, if I expect to owe $1000 in taxes anyway.

So my questions are:

1. I'm not sure at the moment that I will reach $1000 tax owed or not though, but just in case should I still make quarterly payments?

2. In my situation if I missed Q1 and Q2 payments, is there a penalty? I only made a few hundred bucks, and wasn't aware I might need to pay quarterly until around Q3. I haven't gotten any notices from the IRS but I don't want to risk potentially having tons of money to owe

3. Sept 15 is coming up, do I need to worry about paying that quarterly tax? If so, should I also pay the other quarters?

Thank you! And sorry if the questions are a bit dumb, but been over stressing about this tbh and just want to have a clear understanding of the basics

I’m currently taking on a new client, they operate a daycare, who is a 1065 partnership return. The client was not operational until 2025 but when I look at their QBO financial statements, there’s a bunch of activities for the year 2024: tuition, notes payable and a ton of business expenses. The old bookkeeper says that because they were not operational until 2025 she didn’t file for 2024. But I think that because they have revenue, assets, liabilities & equity for the year 2024, they should’ve. Looking for anyone’s expertise on this because my plan is to file their 2024.

My 80 year old mom has a mess of a tax situation and I'm trying to help her out.

Just a brief bit of background. For the past 22 years my mom has worked for the same company on weekly payroll (part time) as an Administrative Assistant. In January of 2025, she was told she is no longer a payroll employee but now an Independent Contractor. Of course, she did not agree with this. Nothing about her job changed. Just that the head office was restructuring and made this determination. She resisted this as much as she could but it went through. She prepared by socking money away to cover all the things that the company used to deduct from her paycheck. Well, nine months later she was laid off. We suspect this Independent Contractor mess was just a ploy to make her quit, but it didn't work and she got canned. She alerted the IRS that she was falsely misclassified as an Independent Contractor and they started an investigation.

Fast forward to my mom trying to sort this mess out for her taxes. She was used to a 1040ez that was simple. Because it was too complicated she contacted AARP who got her in touch with a VITA/TCE program. She went in person to a church and they helped her file her taxes. She owed $1700 and and paid it that day.

Many months later, the IRS has concluded their investigation in her favor. She was misclassified and shouldn't owe that S1700. Now she has to do an amended return. Her normal tax filing usually gets her a return of a few hundred dollars. So she is hoping to be reimbursed her $1700 and a few hundred more like in past years.

Apparently, the VITA/TCE program used Tax Slayer to file her original return. They did the filing electronically on her behalf. Now, from everything I have read, the best and least expensive way to file an amended return is through the program the original return was filed through. However, she never had any login info for Tax Slayer. She is trying to contact the VITA/TCE program now about this.

So my question is, what are her other alternatives to file an amended return (cheap & easy) if she can't log into Tax Slayer? Any advice or help is greatly appreciated!