Filed in February. Owed for Federal, refund from state for almost the same amount, close enough.
About 10 days ago I finished working with my son on his taxes. He is self employed and files Schedule C. He owed quite a lot even though he did estimated payments. We got to the end and he asked me for any advice for lowering his tax liability and I mentioned an IRA. I didn't think he'd go for it as he lives pretty tight and his work is uneven. We looked at the Saver's Credit and his AGI (single under $17,750) was within the range to get a 50% TAX CREDIT!!! for contributing to an IRA. He opened a Trad IRA at Vanguard.
A few days later I had a light bulb go off in my head...... DOH! It should have been a ROTH IRA. Yes, he didn't get the tax deduction but he still didn't use his entire Savers Credit and the excess would cover the increase in tax. He was out of town for work for 4 days, so I looked into how to correct this and when he got home on the 14th he called Vanguard and explained that he wanted to change his IRA to a ROTH and they handled it over the phone.
Then last night after dinner DH's brother called. He's doing his taxes in TurboTax and he asked me what could be wrong, he's getting a huge refund and it showed up when he put in his daughters college expenses. I told him that must be the American Opportunity Credit, the government likes it when you send your kids to college. His daughter went to 4 years at a community college and is now finishing her BA at a private college and all this time he never took the college credits! I was shocked. I helped him through the steps in Turbo Tax and then told him to go back and amend for 2012 and 2011 and get those credits. She has one more year and he'll claim them next year too.
How he missed those, I just don't understand.