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Indepth Tax questions

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hidenseek

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? NC

I will try and keep this short.

For the past few years I have had jobs off and on. Always low paying jobs, never amounted income over 10,000. Basically trying to finish up school/education. In the past few years though I haven't paid/filed any taxes to those jobs, it wasn't out of not wanting to I just as sad as this sound just didn't know what to do or what I had to do. Just recently I have been working as a personal trainer and am starting to take in an income. I am a private contractor and started trying to learn about what I need to do to pay taxes and am kind of lost. Basically what I am asking is this...

1-Do I need to pay backtaxes on my old jobs? How would I go about doing that?
2-Is there a book or a site you could recommend to read to get a easy understanding of when, how and how much I am going to need to file taxes for my job?
 


LdiJ

Senior Member
What is the name of your state? NC

I will try and keep this short.

For the past few years I have had jobs off and on. Always low paying jobs, never amounted income over 10,000. Basically trying to finish up school/education. In the past few years though I haven't paid/filed any taxes to those jobs, it wasn't out of not wanting to I just as sad as this sound just didn't know what to do or what I had to do. Just recently I have been working as a personal trainer and am starting to take in an income. I am a private contractor and started trying to learn about what I need to do to pay taxes and am kind of lost. Basically what I am asking is this...

1-Do I need to pay backtaxes on my old jobs? How would I go about doing that?
2-Is there a book or a site you could recommend to read to get a easy understanding of when, how and how much I am going to need to file taxes for my job?
Yes, you most likely need to file income tax returns for the years you neglected to file. However, its likely that you don't actually owe any taxes for those years and are due a refund instead. The ability to get a refund for 2003 is set to expire on April 15th of this year, so you really need to get moving on those now.

Prior year tax forms are available here:

http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=98339,00.

Unless you have children or were self employed, you can most likely use form 1040 EZ. You will need your W2s for the years in question. If you do not have them, try to get copies from your employers. If you cannot do that, then contact the IRS at 1-800-829-1040 and ask for income transcripts for the years in question. Unfortunately however, IRS income transcripts don't contain information about state withholding, therefore they are problematic to use to file your state returns.

As far as your current self employment is concerned, it would probably be best for you to use a professional tax preparer to handle your return until you get a handle on how it works. Publication 17, available at www.irs.gov, is your best source of information.
 

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