2 1/2 years ago, my daughter moved back from NY to CA. The movers stole many of her things,(anything in the original boxes they could sell at flea markets) damaged others and lost or stole a good antique hat collection. She was out a lot of money. The moving industry is unregulated and very difficult to get satisfaction from. Is it too late to report the loss to the police in order to make a claim for the loss on her income tax?
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It's too bad that your daughter didn't report it earlier. Tell her to call the IRS and ask a tax representative the question on whether the loss can be reported on her income tax for 2007, even though this happened 2 1/2 years ago.
Marge from NY
Per tax law, you need to claim the loss on the returns for that year. For example. if the loss happened 2005, then you claim the loss on the 2005 returns, which are due April 15, 2006 unless you'd filed extensions.
If you filed a report with the police in the year of loss, your daughter can file amended returns (with both irs and nys) within 3 years from the date filing; since these forms are rather complicated, you should get an tax accountant to do them, so you need to determine if the expected refunds will be greater than the tax preparation fees
If you didn't reported it to the police in the year of the loss, there may be lots of questions as to why you waited, both by the police and by the IRS, and if you don't want to deal with the headache I would suggest that you forget about it and move on
You can go to irs.gov to do your own reserach; the rules are similar for NYS, but if you want to make sure NYS tax website address is www.tax.state.ny.us
Anna, NYC
We have had long conversations and dealings with the movers in NY and CA, but we never thought to contact the police. It has been reported to the authorities that handle movers and we can sue (very expensive to do)without worrying about a time frame because we reported that, but I never thought about treating it as a theft for income tax purposes.
How awful. Those movers should be in jail. I hope you file complaints with the Better Business Bureau and consumer websites so that others can be warned about these people. That would help others at least.
You can mention them by name and put in a review about their services. We have really good indexing here and people don't like bad press.
Susan from ThriftyFun
I'm not so sure there has to be a police report to prove the loss. Call the IRS 1-800-829-1040 or go online to IRS.gov
My experience with filing ammended returns (1040X) for the year of the loss, should not be too difficult to do yourself.
There are lots of recorded subjects to choose from. You should be able to find a number there to speak to an IRS agent. This is a free service. Good luck.
OOps! almost forgot to tell you, if the loss was 2 1/2 years ago, that's only 1 1/2 years ago in IRS time! :-)
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