• Zorque@kbin.social
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    7 months ago

    Most people aren’t going to have anywhere near enough taxable investment income for that to matter.

    I think I got about $.87 in interest payments from bank accounts in the past year. I don’t think that’s going to make a huge difference in taxable income.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      You need a better bank account then.

      Let’s say you have $10k in cash (typical emergency fund) and get 4% on it (relatively competitiv; e.g. Ally gives 4.25%), that’s $400 in interest (not including compounding), which is a reportable amount of income. If you’re doing something clever or have a bit more cash for some reason (e.g. saving for a house), you could easily get into more interesting amounts of money.

      • Zorque@kbin.social
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        7 months ago

        $10k in cash (typical emergency fund)

        There’s your mistake right there, thinking people have even $10k to serve as a spare emergency fund.

        I don’t even have a thousand spare right now for an emergency.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          7 months ago

          It’s just an example. You can get semi-interesting numbers with just regular cash flow, depending on what kind of interest your accounts get. Let’s say you make $60k/year and your money sits in your account on average for 5 days. So that’s essentially the same as $800-900 (($60k / 26) * (5/14)) earning whatever your interest rate is on your account. That’s something like $20-40 for 2-5%. That money counts.

          Your risk of an audit increases the more discrepancy the automated checks find. This article claims poorer people are getting targeted more and more, so I think it makes sense to take a few extra minutes to report all of the little accounts you may have.

        • Vyvanse@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          I had like $6k savings until I did my taxes and apparently everything I saved up was how much I owed the tax man. I thought I had actually gotten ahead but turns out that was an illusion lol

        • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 months ago

          Yea I appreciate the dude trying to make sure people don’t forget stuff and get fucked by the irs but he’s a bit privileged thinking we’re all as well off as he is.