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2019 IRS Form 8936

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Yes for your situation can make sense. Personally I don't like opening new accounts all the time. I spend ~$250k yearly on cc's so would just like to pay with a rewards card I already have. Most are about 2% back so kinda spinning my wheels to pay taxes with the fees you linked...


If you spend 250k a year on cards you're losing a ton of $ with a 2% cash back card.

You (and ideally a spouse, and the "business" each of you also has) could be churning through 40+ cards a year of signup bonuses and make 5-10 times the return you are now.

Even more than that if you travel at all.

You're basically leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table annually.


(Hell even if you didn't do a bunch of signups, you can still do a TON better than 2% cash back on 250k spend... how much better would depend what the spend was on though but getting a decent amount of it up to 5% shouldn't be crazy-hard, and the rest at 2.5-3% likewise pretty easy- which would again make paying 1.87% on tax payment net profitable for nearly 0 effort)
 
If you spend 250k a year on cards you're losing a ton of $ with a 2% cash back card.

You (and ideally a spouse, and the "business" each of you also has) could be churning through 40+ cards a year of signup bonuses and make 5-10 times the return you are now.

Even more than that if you travel at all.

You're basically leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table annually.


(Hell even if you didn't do a bunch of signups, you can still do a TON better than 2% cash back on 250k spend... how much better would depend what the spend was on though but getting a decent amount of it up to 5% shouldn't be crazy-hard, and the rest at 2.5-3% likewise pretty easy- which would again make paying 1.87% on tax payment net profitable for nearly 0 effort)

any suggestions on cards or card review sites?

most cards seem to have $100-$500 annual fees and reward the most for travel, fuel and restaurants which is not where I spend. My spending is business related and usually defaults to the lowest reward if variable.
 
I’m wondering if I’m going to still owe a penalty or not for not making estimated payments. I’m basically done with my return (super simple return, standard deduction and one full time job) and right now it’s saying I didn’t make tax payments for a quarter or more and they’ve hit me with a ~$50 fee. Well I calculated my taxes almost to the dollar and adjusted my withholding to stop any tax coming out of my paychecks when I placed my order in July. I think I’ll either get back or owe less than $50 once I can file... but I’m super curious what it’ll say when I can claim the credit.

I’m not too worried over the $50 fee right now if it sticks... but then I also can’t figure out how anyone taking that credit doesn’t “get back” a fairly large amount...
 
(Hell even if you didn't do a bunch of signups, you can still do a TON better than 2% cash back on 250k spend... how much better would depend what the spend was on though but getting a decent amount of it up to 5% shouldn't be crazy-hard, and the rest at 2.5-3% likewise pretty easy- which would again make paying 1.87% on tax payment net profitable for nearly 0 effort)

I’m not interested in card churning or manufactured spending or any of that ... just don’t have the time to chase it all down, so I use my Sapphire Reserve. 3% on travel (most of my expenses) plus another 1.5% if I used it towards more travel. So that’s 4.5% back with no work at all. Very easy.

As for the taxes - my problem is that my income is very (very) variable. It’s difficult to determine what my tax bill will look like, or even what bracket I’ll end up in. One year, I owe them a bunch, next year, they owe me a bunch. It kinda all washes out in the end.

If my income were a little more predictable, it’d be a lot easier to do.
 
If you spend 250k a year on cards you're losing a ton of $ with a 2% cash back card.

You (and ideally a spouse, and the "business" each of you also has) could be churning through 40+ cards a year of signup bonuses and make 5-10 times the return you are now.

Even more than that if you travel at all.

You're basically leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table annually.


(Hell even if you didn't do a bunch of signups, you can still do a TON better than 2% cash back on 250k spend... how much better would depend what the spend was on though but getting a decent amount of it up to 5% shouldn't be crazy-hard, and the rest at 2.5-3% likewise pretty easy- which would again make paying 1.87% on tax payment net profitable for nearly 0 effort)

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any suggestions on cards or card review sites?

most cards seem to have $100-$500 annual fees and reward the most for travel, fuel and restaurants which is not where I spend. My spending is business related and usually defaults to the lowest reward if variable.


doctorofcredit.com is a decent place to start.

If you don't travel, and also rarely spend on fuel or restaurants at all that does cut into your potential returns somewhat... I assume you do eat SOMETHING though so you can certainly beat the hell outta 2% at supermarkets (3-6% at least depending how much you typically spend).

Likewise many (though not all) annual fee cards can be easily profitable over the annual fee but again mostly for folks who do travel and/or routinely spend in specific categories which doesn't sound like you



For business spending- depends on what (though again you'd be beating some of the #s below by quite a bit if you were using the rewards for travel instead of just cash back)

Chase Ink Cash for example gives you 5% (really 5x chase points which are 5% cash, or potentially 7.5% or more for travel) on phone, cable, internet, and everything purchased from office supply stores.

BoAs advantage cash rewards card offers 3% on category of your choice which could cover computer services or business consulting services if that fits your business spending at all- no annual fee... and that 3% goes even higher if you have any status with BoA.

But the "real money" would be in doing new card signups... where as I mention the 250k in spending can easily net you something like $25,000+ per year in signup rewards



Now if you just want to be super lazy and hate money and just use ONE CARD FOR EVERYTHING you still can beat 2% easily... the two best options would be:

Visa® Signature Card | Alliant Credit Union

Flat 2.5% back on everything. $99 annual fee (waived first year) but you obviously make a LOT more than $99 more in cash back on 250k spend annually.


Or if you have BoA top status (meaning you have at least 100k in a BoA account including investment or retirement accounts with Merrill) you can get 2.625% back on everything (and more on some categories)- details on how to do that here-

Bank of America Preferred Rewards Program: 5.25% Cash Back On Gas, 3.75% Travel, 2.625% All Purchases - Doctor Of Credit






I’m not interested in card churning or manufactured spending or any of that ... just don’t have the time to chase it all down, so I use my Sapphire Reserve. 3% on travel (most of my expenses) plus another 1.5% if I used it towards more travel. So that’s 4.5% back with no work at all. Very easy.

It is- it just leaves a ton of $ on the table each year- a LOT a LOT from not doing signups... but quite a bit still even from "regular" spending.

Hell even without doing any churning at all you should at least have 3 other chase cards (Freedom, Ink cash, and either Ink Unlimited or Freedom unlimited)- with which you'd be earning a lot more on your normal spend in a bunch of categories (5x on most, 1.5x on all the non-cat stuff you're currently only getting 1x on) and then get the same 1.5x added bonus on those points by using the Reserve to redeem em.

(also you can often beat the 1.5x bonus of the chase portal by instead transfering those chase points to specific hotel or airline programs.... for example Hyatt hotels you can usually get 2x-2.5x on bookings that way... coach airfare 1.8-2.5x isn't super hard.... and premium airfares like business or first you can often get 4-6x or 6-10x respectively on your points)
 
doctorofcredit.com is a decent place to start.

If you don't travel, and also rarely spend on fuel or restaurants at all that does cut into your potential returns somewhat... I assume you do eat SOMETHING though so you can certainly beat the hell outta 2% at supermarkets (3-6% at least depending how much you typically spend).

Likewise many (though not all) annual fee cards can be easily profitable over the annual fee but again mostly for folks who do travel and/or routinely spend in specific categories which doesn't sound like you



For business spending- depends on what (though again you'd be beating some of the #s below by quite a bit if you were using the rewards for travel instead of just cash back)

Chase Ink Cash for example gives you 5% (really 5x chase points which are 5% cash, or potentially 7.5% or more for travel) on phone, cable, internet, and everything purchased from office supply stores.

BoAs advantage cash rewards card offers 3% on category of your choice which could cover computer services or business consulting services if that fits your business spending at all- no annual fee... and that 3% goes even higher if you have any status with BoA.

But the "real money" would be in doing new card signups... where as I mention the 250k in spending can easily net you something like $25,000+ per year in signup rewards



Now if you just want to be super lazy and hate money and just use ONE CARD FOR EVERYTHING you still can beat 2% easily... the two best options would be:

Visa® Signature Card | Alliant Credit Union

Flat 2.5% back on everything. $99 annual fee (waived first year) but you obviously make a LOT more than $99 more in cash back on 250k spend annually.


Or if you have BoA top status (meaning you have at least 100k in a BoA account including investment or retirement accounts with Merrill) you can get 2.625% back on everything (and more on some categories)- details on how to do that here-

Bank of America Preferred Rewards Program: 5.25% Cash Back On Gas, 3.75% Travel, 2.625% All Purchases - Doctor Of Credit








It is- it just leaves a ton of $ on the table each year- a LOT a LOT from not doing signups... but quite a bit still even from "regular" spending.

Hell even without doing any churning at all you should at least have 3 other chase cards (Freedom, Ink cash, and either Ink Unlimited or Freedom unlimited)- with which you'd be earning a lot more on your normal spend in a bunch of categories (5x on most, 1.5x on all the non-cat stuff you're currently only getting 1x on) and then get the same 1.5x added bonus on those points by using the Reserve to redeem em.

(also you can often beat the 1.5x bonus of the chase portal by instead transfering those chase points to specific hotel or airline programs.... for example Hyatt hotels you can usually get 2x-2.5x on bookings that way... coach airfare 1.8-2.5x isn't super hard.... and premium airfares like business or first you can often get 4-6x or 6-10x respectively on your points)

Thanks for the info.

Briefly looked at the Alliant and that caps cash back at $10k monthly spend and I don't have any accounts with BoA.

I'm going to ease in and sign up for a few new cards this year. Maybe 1 a quarter
 
Man I wish they would get their act together with this. I have a simple tax position and want to file with TurboTax while they have their “early file” promotion and pay a discounted fee. Half debating I just file now and then file an amended return as soon as they get the form finished... you don’t actually have to pay the IRS till April, right? Obviously by then the form will be done & that should zero out my taxes “due.”
 
Anybody try HR Block yet?
My purchase date was 3/11/2019 and I put in $3750 but Block SW reduced it to $1875, seeming based on other credits, but I have none.
Seems odd, it was exactly half.
This seems like an error in the program.
FYI, I still owed tax after the credit.
 
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Anybody try HR Block yet?
My purchase date was 3/11/2019 and I put in $3750 but Block SW reduced it to $1875, seeming based on other credits, but I have none.
Seems odd, it was exactly half.
This seems like an error in the program.

The paper form 8936 just came out from the IRS less than 72 hours ago. 8911 for the charger still hasn’t come out.

I wouldn’t trust ANYTHING digital yet. At least wait until 8911 comes out at a minimum ...
 
Anybody try HR Block yet?
My purchase date was 3/11/2019 and I put in $3750 but Block SW reduced it to $1875, seeming based on other credits, but I have none.
Seems odd, it was exactly half.
This seems like an error in the program.
FYI, I still owed tax after the credit.

somewhere, reddit, someone said you have to put in 7500 first so it does 50/25% correctly