Making Taxes Less Taxing!

Have you filed your return, only to get another W2 in the mail from an employer long since forgotten?  Or a 1098T from a school you left, or a 1099G from the unemployment you drew, a W2G from your casino haul, a 1099R from the 401K that you cashed in, or a 1099 Misc for one day’s work.  If the amount received from any of these is enough to change the state of the previous filed return, i.e. your refund should have been smaller (bad news) or should have been higher (great news), then you will need to refile your taxes. 

As of this writing, any changes that are made to a return currently on file will need to be mailed in.  You will need Form 1040X, US Individual Amended Return.  For the 2009 tax period, the form has been totally reworked.  Gone is the previous three column setup that drove everyone outside of the IRS bonkers.  Now there is only one column, the equivalent of the previous version’s Column C, column amount.  Instead of showing your math from Column C, which had to equal the difference between column A and B, you do your math “off the record” so to speak.  That is, you do the math and put in column C what you should have written down had you received all of your information at the same time.  In most cases, if you prepared your original return using tax software or online, just go back into the program and plug in the figures to get the change.  It may then be able to generate a Form 1040X for you to sign, attach supporting documentation to and mail back or the necessary information for you to plug into a paper copy of the 1040X. 

In addition to income and deduction changes, you may also make changes to the filing status (any filing status change except for individuals attempting to change their filing status from Married Filing Jointly to Married Filing Separately after April 15^th) or number of exemptions (dependents) claimed, either by decreasing or increasing the number claimed.  Remember to give an explanation as to why you are filing the amended return, attach any necessary schedules and forms needed to support your entries, and sign and date the return.  Allow up to eight to twelve weeks for processing.  If these timeframes have passed without a response, contact the IRS at 1-800-829-0922 between the hours of 7am to 10pm Monday through Friday local time.

Remember that the deadline to file Form 1040X for the current tax period if you owe money is April 15^th.  After that day, you may be subject to interest and penalty with reference to late payment.  The late payment stems from having an outstanding balance after April 15^th.