How do I know if I owe back taxes? I haven't been stimulated by the gov't yet and wondering if thats why.

Question

Of course I filed my taxes...

Last year(2006) I owed taxes because my daughter's step-mom and dad claimed her even though it was my year to claim her on taxes so I got stuck paying $1200 unexpectedly and couldn't pay it right away. Last summer I received a tax refund from the state which was more then I was expecting if at all. Then this year I received a (2007)Federal and a state refund. If I owed taxes why did I get a refund this year? Shouldn't it have gone to paying my balance?

Answer 1

If you owe, you know.

Answer 2

how can you not know if you owe taxes? Don't you remember from your tax returns if you got a refund or owed taxes?

Answer 3

If you are asking that question I'm assuming you may not have filed your returns?  If you have not done so, the government will not send you a stimulus check whether you are due for a refund or you owe taxes.

If you have filed your returns, you should certainly know if you owe taxes or not.  If you filed your returns the government will send you your check based upon the schedule they have set up which is according to social security numbers.

If you have filed your returns, and they intend to NOT send you a stimulus check, they will send you a letter explaining why - and if it is back taxes you owe, they will let you know that too. And they will apply that amount to what you owe.

UPDATE:

The way you are wording your question, I am assuming you mean you had to pay $1200 on your 2006 FEDERAL return.  Is that correct?  If you then received a refund on your FEDERAL return in 2007, then presumably you either paid off the $1200 before  filing your 2007 return - which is why they would have sent you a refund for 2007.  If NOT, they would/should have applied your 2007 refund (or at least whatever amount was still lacking from the 2006 return) to the 2006 payment.  By this I mean you should have either not received a 2007 federal refund OR you should have only received the amount you were entitled to after deducting whatever you possibly still owed for 2006. (I'm saying all this because you said you couldn't pay the $1200 for 2006 all at once).

If this was an oversight on the part of the IRS, meaning if they sent you a refund for 2007 even though you still OWED for 2006, that could be why they are holding up your stimulus check.  I mean, they could have recognized you didn't pay all you owed for 2006 and are now planning to apply the stimulus payment to that.  

But it sounds like they just haven't sent the stimulus check yet.

As far as the STATE return is concerned, that is a separate entity entirely and has nothing to do with the federal refund or stimulus check.

But your issue about your daughter's father claiming her when it was your year to claim - was this just a mistake on their part? Do you have a formal agreement saying you are taking turns claming her? If not, you should probably get one to avoid these problems.  If a child spends more than 6 months during the tax year in the home of one parent, THAT parent gets to claim the exemption unless he/she files the dependency exemption waiver, giving the OTHER parent that right for designated years.  If it's a 50-50 deal, then the parent who gets it is the one with the highest adjusted gross income - again, unless that person wants to waive his/her right through the dependency exemption waiver. Otherwise if you are agreeing to take turns and do not have a legal maintenance agreement, you should probably consult with a family attorney to put one in place, as you don't want to be stuck paying taxes if it was the OTHER parents' mistake.