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Thank you, I have been using Turbo Tax Home and Business on subscription for many years.  I use this for my family taxes, including my children that are now young adults.  As a tax preparer,  I have used many software platforms for professional returns since 2011.  Turbo Tax is the only one that has this particular systemic issue with double or triple charging the first state return filed.  It occurs because the software forces users to enter credit card information twice.  Once just after entering the banking information and again after the system does an addition check and save of the return.  That is a systemic flaw in the software and the reason for the double and triple billing.  If Turbo Tax does not want to honor the one free state, then do not advertise it.  Turbo Tax was already successfully sued for another unrelated false advertising issue, so I would think they would want to assign a team of technicians to solve this issue quickly.   

Yes, you will have a penalty simply because you made a payment late. Estimates had to paid evenly or you would have been considered as paying late since you missed a payment period, or two. This is a factor even if your payment before January was enough to cover the 110%.  The IRS is required to collect the money when it's earned as well as interest and penalty if paid late.   @disilvios1 

If you already e-filed you are stuck with "5 days early" if the return is accepted.  If it rejects you can try to remove that option in the FILE section before you re-file.       "5 days early" means you are supposed to receive your federal refund from one to five days sooner than the refund date shown on the IRS refund site.   If it does not meet that "at least one day sooner" date, they are supposed to refund the $35 fee.   You have to pay attention to the date on the IRS refund site. You need your filing status, your Social Security number and the exact amount  (line 35a of your 2025 Form 1040) of your federal refund to track your Federal refund:    https://www.irs.gov/refunds  

We added an article about whether charitable donations reduce state taxes and it does very much depend on state, but we covered all 50 states + DC in the article to give you an idea if it's worth it or not.

I have had $3000 of Federal tax withheld and owe $2775 in taxes, so I have a tax refund of $225. Do I have a "tax liability" that enables me to receive the tax credit on form 5695? Or do I need to owe more in taxes than the amount that's already been withheld? The IRS language regarding this issue is not clear to me.

Yes, for 2025 employers are not required to report the qualified overtime on your W2.  Some will provide a supplemental statement, but if yours does not, you can use any reasonable method- just be sure that you enter the overtime premium (the half of the time and a half) if that is how it is reported on your pay stub.

Researched with AI (Claude) and was able to reach an answer. Note AI can make mistakes so it's important to really drill nuanced details and cite references (causes AI like Claude to be more cautious). AI is very good at explaining its logic clearly (even if wrong). This in turn can be helpful to understand how things are logically determined and what make sense. Below is my chat session, you can see I kept narrowing in on he precise question and eventually AI understood I wanted to talk about the transition year between resident and non-resident. Then it provided the worldwide income vs NY sourced income differences. After this, logic became clear quickly.   https://mega.nz/file/1a9gxKZI#QhZSyH-7g58xBup6nsHpCLhJTjceQC3FO1KX6qkJgUk   The 2 NYS tax code rules thats relevant here are   1. N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. Tit. 20 § 132.7 - Deductions with respect to capital losses, net long-term capital gains and net operating losses https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/new-york/20-NYCRR-132.7   2. N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. Tit. 20 § 154.7 - Capital gain or loss and capital loss carryover https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/new-york/20-NYCRR-154.7   And a clear distinction of 2 different tax policies between NYS resident vs non-resident (explained by AI) Resident are taxed on worldwide income Non-resident are taxed on NYS sourced income Rule #1 example shows clearly security gains are not considered as non-resident since its WW income and not NYS sourced.   Rule #2 says during the transition year (part year NYS resident, part non-resident) A. Calculate the resident part with CG gains and suspended losses from worldwide income.  B. Calculate the non-resident part with only NYS sourced CGs/losses/suspended losses.   So in my case During NY resident period 1/1/25 - 2/15/25, add all worldwide CGs and suspended losses. In my case, CGs were tiny while suspended losses easily exceed the $3k limit. Therefore, use -$3k for NYS/NYC CG. From 2/16/25 - 12/31/25, have no NYS capital gains (or suspended losses) So this is $0 For this transition year, CGs are -$3k by combining both calculations. If anyone has experience, please share if this is correct. Thanks.

It will also help expedite things if you include a note that states another taxpayer claimed the child, The reason they don't have the right to, their ss#, form 8832 I think that is the form showing you have the right to claim them, and also the legal statement, if you have one such as a divorce decree or custody disposition proving your statement. It is likely they won't even have to contact you if you include the proof.

I just switched everything over to FreeTaxUSA, and it worked surprisingly well, even my K-1 and other investments.  FTU doesn’t reconcile every single sale, it just allows you to attach an 8949 (mine is from Koinly) and be done with it.  TurboTax, for some reason, makes you mail this in if you can’t get everything imported (due to their lack of features).  I’ll be calling Monday to get a refund on TT Home and Business and I won’t be back with them.  Smooth move, Intuit.  I really need to know what dim bulb in their management chain (you know he or she exists) decided supporting crypto wasn’t important.   I would love to talk to that person and understand why they don’t have the impostor syndrome they deserve.