I was happy to see I was going to get a good refund this year, but then I got to the end of my taxes and it said I was a high audit risk, which it has never done before. So I looked at why. It listed several reasons, including that I filed a schedule C, but I file one every year and always come up as a low audit risk. So then it said that my business was operating at a loss, which confused me. I have two freelance businesses, and while I wouldn't say I make a good living off either of them, neither operates at a loss.
So I went back through the income section trying to figure out where I went wrong. I quickly realized it showed my business income at a $3,768 loss. So then I find the page where it lists both my businesses. It shows the first one with a gross income of $4,180 and a net income of -$10,478. Now, at that point I wondered how I could possibly have entered a number so wrong that that happened. Must be one hell of a typo! Because I had maybe $1,500 in inventory costs and other expenses. There's no way I had a 10k loss!
So I dug around and found "Miscellaneous expenses" of more than $8,600. And I'm trying to figure out how I managed to type that in so wrong. And then I see this:
Your $6,831 section 465 (d) carryover has already been added to your expenses.
Huh?
So I look it up and it says it has something to do with carrying over losses from last year, only I didn't have any losses last year. How do I get rid of this? I never answered yes to any questions about losses.
