Comments on: Ask the taxgirl: Housing Credit and Taxes

By: Melissa

Melissa — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 11:28:29 +0000

I bought a home on April 13Th 2010 and sent my amendment in to the IRS on the 29Th . I know I should be getting the credit but I was wondering how long it can take for an amendment to go through. How long should pass ? I know I am not the only one wondering so can you give a a high light on how long it will take the IRS to send out payments? Is there a way to track your amendment? (without calling of course).
Thanks so much ,
Melissa

By: Christie

Christie — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:31:37 +0000

I need help on what to do…On January 28th I filed my taxes and had a free and clear to close on my house that following Monday so I went ahead and included the house at that time well then the house was sold out from under us for cash we found out on our closing date. Anyways I had originally filed for that house while we were still under the 7500 tax credit 09. I need to know what to do to ammend that return change it to the 8000 and to our new address we closed and moved in on June 15th. Any ideas I know I am not the only person that did this I found one other persons post that was similar on another site but nobody answered them.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:55:23 +0000

My tax guy placed the wrong address on my 5405 Form for my first time homebuyer credit on my amended return. It has gone through 3 reviews and the irs has forwarded it to the Taxpayer Advocate Service. Now I cannot even get a call back from the advocate service. I keep leaving messages for days and cannot get a call back. I am hurting very bad as even my checking account is overdrafted $400 at this moment. What should I do? I cannot get an answer for the life of me? It was received by the IRS on April 13th 2009.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:06:52 +0000

I don’t believe that an amended return attracts more attention on the audit circuit, I just find that there are more problems with amended returns than extended ones. It’s not hard to amend but folks often use the wrong forms, don’t fill out the right info, etc. It also takes a LOT longer to process than a “normal” return, so don’t be alarmed at the pace: IRS says to plan on 8-12 weeks.

Your audit risk is probably already medium-ish because you reported a Schedule C with a loss. That tends to get higher scrutiny than a plain vanilla return, though keep in mind that the % of audits is still very low – so don’t lose any sleep over it.

If you could use the refundable credit now, then there’s no harm in filing an amended return. I suspect the IRS will get a lot of these since it has not been well publicized that you can take the 09 credit on your 08 taxes (exactly how I made my mistake, above). To amend your return for purposes of the credit, file a federal form 1040X with a completed federal form 5405, First-Time Homebuyer Credit, attached to the return. In your case, the box on federal form 5405, Part I, line C, must be checked.

By: Karyn

Karyn — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:56:37 +0000

We qualify for the housing credit (new homeowners, closed Jan 28th, 2009). We also already filed our 2008 taxes and the efile was confirmed as received. We owed a wee bit (from Schedule C related taxes). We are securely under the limits for income. Would it be more beneficial to amend our 2008 taxes or wait and just claim the credit in 2009? Does an amended return attract more audit attention? We could sure use that credit now but I don’t want to increase our chances of getting audited. We file jointly, 1040, with two Sch C (one with a loss this year, one with a profit).