George Kamel - Taxes for Beginners | What You Need to Know in 2024

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

💵 Sign up for EveryDollar today - Create a free Budget!  If you find taxes confusing, you’re not alone (trust me). In today’s video, get the most entertaining and concise overview on taxes you’ll ever watch so you can file with confidence. Next Steps 💵 Learn more about how to file with confidence. https://www.ramseysolutions.com/taxes/tax-services 📗 Order George Kamel’s new book, Breaking Free From Broke.   Offers From Today's Sponsors This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off your first month of therapy! https://www.betterhelp.com/george   🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here's a riddle for you. What's something that's confusing, intimidating, and one of the lame parts of being an adult? If you guess neighborhood potlucks, assembling furniture, or raising children, you're close. I'm talking about filing your taxes. That's lame. Now before you click away, to do anything else other than think about your taxes, hear me out. This will be the most entertaining and concise video on taxes you'll ever watch. Unless B.s come out with that big tax collab, that would definitely knock me down a pet. I can't compete with that.

So to kick things off, we're going to talk about what the people want to know about taxes, starting with the civilians on the streets of Nashville. Before we get to that, there's a tax you have to pay to watch this video. Some call it the troll toll, and I call it the camel tax. But don't freak out, there's a loophole, and you can actually bring your tax liability down to zero with a like, subscribe, and share exemption. So, get to clicking. All right, I'm going to go to the streets now. See ya.

Who does your taxes? Who does your taxes? Who does my taxes? My mother. I had to have my stepdad do it. My cousin's family actually files my taxes. They handle it. Yes.

You just give them all the documents and say good luck. I just give it to them and just like, here you go. It's with God now. Yes. I actually do it myself. Oh, okay, nice. Do you feel confident about doing that yourself? Yes, sir, for the most part.

And it's worked out successfully for me because the IRS has a knocked on my door. That's the important part. When did you learn about taxes? I've never learned. You still don't know about taxes. No. What do you know about it? Nothing.

We pay taxes and that's it. Because I pay someone to pay my taxes. But you have a job. Yes. And you pay taxes out of that job. Yeah. But then you're like, why am I paying more taxes? Gee, I never really thought of it like that.

My senior year of high school. Wow. Listen, they teach that in high school? It's just certain classes. I took a personal finance class, so they kind of talked about it. Do they teach you about Dave Ramsey or anything like that? A little bit. What do you think about that guy?

Obviously, I don't really kind of listen to his advice because I spend all my money. What in the world? This is affecting your financial life. Are you in debt? For sure. At least you're honest. Do you know what day tax day officially is this year? Oh, that's actually a really good question.

I swear that you have all the way up until, if I'm not mistaken, I want to say you've got to follow about June. Well, I just got my W2. Okay. That has nothing to do with when taxes are two. April 14th. Close? Give me one more day. 15.

We got 15. Same thing. Mid-April. We all know that, right? Give me a day between 14 and 16. 15. Nailed it. First try.

Cushed it. Okay. What does the IRS stand for? I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to need to help. It starts with an I. I know.

And then the R and S. Then the R is next. Yeah. And then the S. Internal revenue system service. Yes. Wait, really? Yeah.

Is she right? Can you say it again? No. You want to phone a friend? I'll be your friend. Yeah. Internal revenue service. Yeah, I knew that.

Internal revenue service, right? This guy's a real champ. You're the fastest to get it today. Wow. That's impressive. Do you know the difference between the standardized and itemized deductions? Uh-uh. Okay, that's fine.

Nope. I don't have an answer for you. Just wanted to know. Itemized? Is that when you, like, get things, like, for a business and it's on a receipt and you have, like, every little thing specified? Kind of. That's all I got for you. That's pretty good, actually.

Okay. What's the difference between you? between a deduction and a credit when it comes to taxes? Deduction and a credit? Yep. When it comes to taxes? Yep. You got to ask my mom, bro.

Can we get her on the phone? She's going to be mad that I'm telling family business. Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy? Well, I mean, it's a credit and a deduction, right? That's, yes. Credit, you know, I'm assuming it's a credit. Bro, what are you talking about, man? I'll get back to harassing strangers soon,

but let me tell you, this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. So let me ask you a question. What would you do if you had a free hour in your day? What would you spend that time doing? Take a nap, go on a run, binge watch five episodes of George Camel on YouTube. Whatever it is and whatever you want to do, BetterHelp Online Therapy can help you find what really matters to you so you can do more of it. So get connected at BetterHelp.com slash George and get 10% off your first month. All right, let's get back to harassing strangers. When do you plan on filing your tax return this year? I'm not. Not doing it?

No. What do you mean? No. I'm not filing taxes anymore. I'm pulling under Donald Trump. No way. If the president of the United States don't have to pay taxes, I found a way not have to pay taxes myself. Yeah, what's the hack there?

RAs, I can't tell you about that. Oh, but it's legal loopholes. Oh, it's 100% legal. But you can't give away all your secrets. Did Donald Trump tell you? He ain't tell me nothing. Okay, so you'd probably be the last person on earth, I'd tell. On your last tax return, did you owe money or did you get a refund?

Oh, we owed money. Oh, like a lot? Yeah. I'm refund. Nice. A big one? It's decent. What's like the biggest one you've gotten?

I've gotten like 7,000. Whoa. To me honest, I can't even remember. Last year I got $8 back. I actually got a little bit of a refund. I try to get it around zero plus or minus a couple hundred dollars. I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job. What do you do with a tax refund?

Just spend it? Yeah, gas or food. If I had more, then maybe I get like a jet ski. Go on a vacation. Oh. I don't know. I might come back to the National. I don't know.

Party. Typically it went into more. equipment investing back into the business. Okay. Or it went to a savings account for something that I was going to purchase later on for the business. It's a good business owner right there. Have you ever lied on your taxes?

Knowingly or unknowingly? Unknowingly, possibly. We got them, guys. Come on out. We got them. IRS is coming. Not to my knowledge. Okay.

Because they all, they talk about that fine and they talk about that hefty jail sentence and I'm too pretty to go to jail. Do you understand what I said? I totally. Same thing for me. The only reason I haven't committed. federal crimes at this point. Come on. Oh, wow.

It smells a lot better in here than the streets of Nashville. I got to tell you, y'all. Good to be back in my humble abode. So we heard from our friends, but if you've never ever filed your taxes before, or if you still find them confusing, you're probably still not totally clear on what your next steps are. I'm going to give you a very high-level overview as to not overwhelm you. Number one, get your ish together. And by ish, I mean documents, like the main ones.

Your W-2s, 1099s, receipts from charitable donations, mortgage statements, investment statements, that kind of thing. Number two, choose your filing status. It's kind of like your Facebook relationship status, except instead of high school classmates making invasive comments about it, this filing status helps you know your standard deduction, how much you'll owe, if you qualify for certain credits, and other official sounding stuff like that. Number three, decide if you want to take the standard deduction or itemize. For most people, the standard deduction is the better option, but for some, itemizing could be the better route. Step number four, file your taxes.

We're finally here. Now, there's a few ways to do this. You could work with the tax pro, which can really help with the stress and confusion and time, or you could use a DIY tax software, which can be a really good option if your situation is pretty simple. Another option, which I don't recommend, is filling out all of the paperwork yourself by hand and snail-mailing it to the IRS. And I don't like this one for one major reason. My handwriting is terrible, and I have a hard time finding a good pen. It's all about the good pen.

Step number five, either pay what you owe or get a refund on tax day. And P.S., if you're getting a massive refund or you owe a lot to the IRS, adjust your withholdings for next year using the W-4 form. Bada-Bing, bada-boom, you crushed your taxes. Nailed it. Bonus step, go celebrate. Red lobster, get some cheddar-bite biscuits, get a lobsterita, do a little dipskies. happens go wild if you want a deeper dive on all of this tax stuff go to ramsysolutions.com

slash tax or click the link in the description on that page we'll help you figure out whether you should sell file use a pro there's a detailed guide to help you with taxes and personal checklists you can print out to make it super easy so again check out the link below for that resource and let me know in the comments if you've got any wild or crazy tax stories we'll have a fun time down there and be sure to share this video with whoever does your taxes whether that's mom, dad, or your CPA. They need your support more than you know right now. Thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time.