I received three income tax refunds in 2023 based on 2022 filings.
A federal refund that matched what I filed.
A second federal refund, months later, apparently after the IRA looked more closely.
A state (Connecticut) refund.
As I understand it, since I itemized the state refund is probably taxable for 2023. Some sort of worksheet will handle that. But the federal refunds are not. Have I got that straight?
Thanks!
It’s been over 20 years since I lived in CT, and I imagine that their state taxes have changed some since, so even if I could remember what CT state taxes were like, I’m not sure it would be relevant. In general, if you are allowed to deduct your Federal taxes when calculating your state taxes, it’s likely that the Federal refunds are considered to be income.
AJ
Thanks, AJ. I’m sorry I wasn’t clear, all my questions were about the impact on my federal taxes. From what I can tell my federal refunds don’t impact by federal return, but my state refund might have an impact on my federal, depending on whatever comes out of that worksheet.
No worries!
Correct.
AJ
Thanks again.
I spent some time on Saturday downloading all the 2023 transactions from my bank, three credit cards, and a few other places. All are now in a spreadsheet. Another spreadsheet has copies of the deductible donations from those sources. Likewise, I downloaded all the various tax documents from here, there and everywhere. All gathered in one folder on my PC. I even finally installed TurboTax Deluxe, which I purchased back in December.
(Knowing me, it will be weeks before I do anything more.)
Wow - I am amazed you did all that work. I use Quicken and download daily. In addition to the built in reports, I have some custom reports that took maybe 10 minutes for each.
I’ve never even thought of getting Quicken, not my style. Downloading a year’s worth of transactions from most sources* is pretty simple. No two are alike, but they all amount to the same thing: set the date range, set any filters (I mostly remove them), and download a .csv file. Open in in Excel, save in Excel format. I’m pretty good with Excel.
*(PayPal is the exception, only one month at a time. Thankfully I rarely use it.)
I have Quicken but it’s pretty much useless now. For the last six months or so I have been unable to download Elan Financial Services transactions (our main credit card). Quicken opened a ticket on the problem and nothing has developed. Major problem since the IT folks at Quicken won’t talk to the IT folks at Elan Financial. You know the old song and dance. Not my problem.
Is the Elan card a VISA or Master Card?
Just out of curiosity what is the attraction for your Elan card?
Not @ImAGolfer but my Fidelity-branded VISA card was issued by Elan. 2% cash back if deposited to a Fidelity account with no annual fee and no caps.
AJ
Sounds like our Citi Double Cash card.
Also, I get 3% back on all our Apple Card transactions made with the NFC system.
If I had this issue, I would not be speaking with Elan, but rather Fidelity.
They would probably refer you to Elan. They just sponsor the credit card and administer the rewards. They don’t have anything to do with administering the card.
AJ
I have the same card, and it is the one I default to unless another card has a specific advantage. The Costco/Citi card is used at Costco, restaurants and travel (but no longer for gas since I got a Tesla). The Amazon card only gets used there.
Costco used to use AMEX, and for whatever reason that had a rather high limit that was transferred to the Citi card when Costo switched. It was high enough that I could pay for my grandson’s trade school (electrical lineman) and get the points.
There is a faint chance that Fidelity might choose to put some pressure on Elan. Fidelity has to be a really big part of Elan, so they have leverage. A complaint to Fidelity could be phrased as Fidelity choosing a third-rate vendor. (I did say faint!)
Yes, faint is probably an appropriate term.
AJ
Hi GW. The card is a VISA card. The card issues a 2% refund/rebate that is deposited in my Fidelity cash account.
The cash shows up monthly with no problems and I’m happy with that but the relationship between Elan and Quicken leaves a LOT to be desired.
