Sunday, March 7, 2010

Pain in the Butt Tax Info for You


I spent most of this glorious weekend inside working on my taxes, which this year are HIDEOUSLY complicated.

I did get outside with Charlie and two dogs and we frolicked in the park for awhile so that was nice. Also tried out the new Thai restaurant A MILE AWAY, which is pretty good!

But back to taxes. maybe I'll save you some of my headache.

I got the taxes done, but not having a SS # for Charlie yet, I put her Permanent Resident # into tall those spaces and claimed her as a dependent, took the Adoption Credit, and took the Dependent Care deduction.

Got ALL my taxes back! Woo Hoo!

Efiled.

Within minutes it came back as rejected.

Here's the part you NEED TO KNOW IF YOUR CHILD DOESN'T HAVE A SS# YET:

You need to go here: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw7a.pdf and fill out this form to get a temporary tax identification number, WHICH CAN TAKE 8 WEEKS to get. SO don't wait until you are doing your taxes to do this. WHY DOESN'T ANYBODY TELL YOU THIS STUFF AHEAD OF TIME?????

So now I have to figure out how to file an extension, when I already submitted the tax paperwork. Turbo Tax doesn't help much with these situations. It gets stuck in an endless loop. I'll probably just have to print it all out and snail mail it. Which is ok, just... I thought I was done :-(

I am in the process of getting her SS#, but the re-adoption took a lot longer than expected, and I'm still waiting on the state to send something or other before I can apply for her SS#. No way would all this get done before taxes are due.

9 comments:

Sam's mom said...

I'm so sorry this happened. Some use the Tax ID number but I have encouraged EVERYONE to get the SSN as soon as possible. We got Sam's within 2 months of his arrival home. Yes, it has his birth name and we have to have that changed, but that's easy-peasy just like when I got married and changed my name.
Hopefully this post will alert others to get that paperwork filed.

Robbin Hopkins said...

Hi not sure about your state but in Michigan I was able to get the judge's decree (on the request for the BC) and I was able to use that to apply for the SS# without readopting. GO TO THE SS office. I almost made the mistake of getting the temporary and instead I got the SS card within 7 days. And because I had the new name on the judges decree i didn't have to apply for a new card after the name change! Hope this helps

sko3 said...

I avoided this since my adoption agency alerted me. BUT, it only took about 3 weeks to get my ATIN. I hope it's similarly fast for you!

Nobody said...

my husband is currently pulling his hair out over taxes too... ours is complicated by Railroader tax forms (which are differend from everybody else's apparently) and our home-operated business we closed down halfway into next year. total pain in the rear. i don't know if this will help you or not, but when i was at my library the other day, i noticed a table with a bunch of tax forms, and took note of the extension form. (because we may be needing it ourselves) perhaps you could go to your local public library and get the forms, or at least info?

Anonymous said...

Awww im sorry !!!! Our re-adoption isnt even started yet(deployed hubby) but I got then SSN anyways. I knew it would be less hassle come tax time lol.

J-momma said...

yup. we learned that the hard way last year. mateo had a SS# but not with the new name change on it. so we had to apply for a new SS# with the new name. It took several weeks to get it too. good thing we started early last year. this year, not so much. better hope nothing goes wrong!

Chrissy said...

THANK YOU SO MUCH for the advanced warning on this!! I have some other questions for you I don't want to ask via blog (single mother and dating stuff!!) so if you don't mind... :-) would love to email you! mine is chrissy37601athotmaildotcom!!

Anonymous said...

I really learned from your post, thank you. If there is a problem with the ssn, will IRS let u know right away? The reason I'm asking is we applied for the adoption tax credit for the first time and this is the first time we've used our son's ssn on taxes. They accepted the return so does that mean everything matched up with their computers? It seems to be taking a little longer to get our refund this year.

Adopting1Soon said...

Anon,
My electronic return was rejected within 5 minutes, so it seems to be pretty instantaneous in as far as the incorrect SS #'s goes. Sounds like your return is good to go :-)