11.Will I be charged a cash advance fee?

No, your tax payment will be treated like a retail purchase and not a cash advance purchase.

https://payusatax.com/faq.aspx#11

5.Will I be charged a cash advance fee?

No, your tax payment will be treated like a retail purchase and not a cash advance.

https://www.pay1040.com/FAQ.aspx#5

4. Will my payment be processed as a purchase or cash advance transaction?

Your payment will be processed as a purchase transaction

https://www.officialpayments.com/fed...irs_cf_b.jsp#4

Just used payustax.com with US MC and it appears to have gone through as a CC transation, FWIW.

I just paid state and federal taxes with my new Chase UA MP visa. But I later realized that, with the service fee included, it would have been almost expensive to just buy the miles directly from UA. Oh well, give me a change to try out the new visa.

In general, you need to use a card that earns more than one mile per dollar to net better than a break-even paying taxes through any of the three services.

It is a fast and easy way though to meet the spend level on a credit card for EQM. For example, 2c per mile for 25k RDM, 10k of which are EQM is certainly easier than some mileage runs which net equivalent.

Alright... ended up owing the IRS this year... and bit the bullet- charged a bit on my CC thru this service- thanks for posting it (lowest fee) ^

Still pending at this time, but they do post the fee separate then the bill for the IRS...

I used the SunTrust Delta SkyMiles Platinum Visa debit card to pay over $40K in taxes. I should receive over 40K Delta SkyMiles for a fee of only $3.89. The Terms & Conditions provide that internet purchases qualify and no exception is listed for payments of taxes:

*SunTrust SkyMiles® Check Cards are available with any SunTrust personal or business checking account. The annual fee is $20 for the SkyMiles Classic Check Card and $55 for the SkyMiles Platinum Check Card and SkyMiles Business Check Card. The one-time Enrollment Bonus of 10,000 miles for the Platinum and Business Check Cards; and 5,000 miles for the Classic Check Card is a limited-time offer from 4/01/2010 – 6/30/2010. The one-time Enrollment Bonus Miles will be awarded after the first signature-based purchase with your Classic, Platinum or Business Check Card. The first signature-based purchase must be made by 07/31/2010 to be eligible for the one-time Enrollment Bonus Miles. Only signature-based purchases, Internet purchases, phone or mail order purchases or automatic bill payments qualify for mileage earnings. Cash advances, ATM transactions, payments for stored-value cards and purchases made with a PIN do not qualify. Please allow 6-8 weeks for Enrollment Bonus Miles to be credited to your SkyMiles account. The one-time Enrollment Bonus Miles are only available to new SunTrust SkyMiles Classic, Platinum and/or Business Check Card customers and cannot be combined with any other enrollment offer. The SunTrust personal or business checking account must also be open and in good standing at the time the Enrollment Bonus Miles are awarded. All SkyMiles program rules apply. To review the rules, please visit delta.com/skymiles.
The SkyMiles Check Cards are issued by SunTrust Banks, Inc., and the cards are available in AL, AR, FL, GA, MD, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV, and DC.

Please report back whether you get the 40K delta miles or not. I'm thinking about doing the same thing with my AA or United debit card but highly doubt that I can actually get the miles since it's a flat fee $3.89 service, likely it's being run as a special debit charge, otherwise someone is paying for those miles (obviously not enough to be covered by the $3.89 fee)

+1111+
I have Suntrust, AA and United cards, which I will be happy to give a work out to if this is the case. Thanks

Never! Buying has yearly limits (and gifting too)!
I buy unlimited AA miles by paying taxes with the SPG and AA cards.
With SPG it is 2.35% for the amex = 1.88c for each AA mile.
With the PayUSAtax, it is 1.95% for the visa directly.
Once they add amex, then the games really begin.

Hey Guys, just wanted to also update this thread that you're only allowed to split current year 1040 payments on 2 separate cards. Initially the plan was putting my taxes on 3 different cards to receive bonuses/cashback but once I got to the 3rd I had met the max # of transactions so had to cut a check for the remainder.

Wish I'd seen this when I paid my tax bill on Tuesday. I just gave up on them and went with pay1040.com. Bunch of dumb assess, not having a site that works properly. :mad:

Seems a bit fishy with the additionally promoted Mastercard relationship on that site I wouldn't be surprised if they are trying to encourage users to use MC over V by disallowing V. I used both and had to call in for V.

Get a Chase Mileage Plus DEBIT card. $60 annual fee. I also got 17,500 promo bonus miles for the initial sign up last year. Federal tax payments cost $3.95 per transaction at Official Payments/Visa Debit and you still get 1 mile per $1.

It works for Federal taxes and "some" local taxes (property taxes, etc).

Can you explain how these airline debit cards work? Are they just cards linked to your bank account that automatically take the money out of your banking account?

Do any of them offer EQM for a certain spend level. Now that would really make a $4 fee for paying taxes worth it!

Can you confirm that you DID receive United miles already after paying with United DEBIT card? We need some positive data point since the debit option will be way better than ~2% credit card option.

Which payment webste was this that has the limit? (I assume payusatax.com)

Could you have used payUSAtax.com service for 2 transactions and another for the balance (although with a higher fee)?

Yeah -- this would be really important to know. If you process a tax payment on payUSAtax.com with a debit card, you have to specifically identify it as such, I think. Does it ask for your pin? If it does, it seems to me that would disqualify it from most debit card T&Cs for miles. If it doesn't, then I would think the web site would charge you the credit card payment fee.

Wish we had some more data on this. I'm just waiting for the right opportunity to sign up for a debit card deal. This would make it worthwhile.

I'm in the same boat is you. If this qualifies for miles I'll signup for the Chase CO account today. Can anyone confirm that has completed a debit transaction and which card they used?

Just as a test run, I went all the way to the final "process payment" screen on payusatax.com with a debit card. On the second to the last screen, I got a message that said: "Your card is eligible for processing as an ATM/debit transaction. If you would like to process your payment as a ATM/debit transaction, press the continue button. If you would like to process your payment as a debit card, press the process as debit card button."

I tried both, and there was no apparent difference in how it handled the transaction -- although I didn't do the final step. In neither case was I asked for a PIN.

The transaction posted to my SunTrust checking account as follows:

CHECK CARD PURCHASE US TREASURY TAX PA 615-730-6367 MD

Therefore, it should definitely qualify to earn Delta miles. I will know for sure in early May, when my April mileage posts to my SkyMiles account.

Thanks for the follow up. Please keep us posted.

It Worked!
 

As I expected, the SunTrust SkyMiles debit card counted as a purchase and I have an additional 41K miles in my account for the low, low price of just $3.89:

04 May 2010 Non Air Activity SunTrust SkyMiles Platinum Card - Purchases (posted on 04May2010) 41018 0 41018

Why anyone would use a credit card to pay taxes and earn miles when a debit card is so much cheaper is beyond me.

Any monkey business and you will make yourself look suspect.

Your Suntrust Delta debit card allows you to pay $41K tax in one single transaction? Don't most debit cards have a maximum daily purchase limit like a few K?

DCBob & PatMike, perhaps we should lock / close this thread or make it more inscrutable, lest it go the way of Mint coins, Amex Tc and Citi Savings Accounts.

Yes, indeed.

Lastly Suntrust is a Visa Card. PayUSAtax has had problems using my BA visa. How did you get it to work, did you try online? or did you use officialpayments.com?

The SunTrust SkyMiles Platinum Visa debit card has a daily limit of $35K. I went through the supervisory chain at the bank to get a temporary increase to $42K to allow me to pay my taxes on April 15.

PayUSAtax won't accept Visa credit cards online, but it DOES accept Visa debit cards online.

Although PayUSAtax online does not accept Visa credit card, it works over the phone. Someone posted the phone number in this thread. I paid with my Schwab CC and it worked.

I paid with the schwab CC as well by phone and it worked. Now just waiting on the 2% to post to my investor balance.

Has anyone with a Citibank debit card figured out a way to pay taxes to get TYP? Seems that Citis cards are MasterCard only - and these sites require a Visa branded card for debit at the flat fee. They accept the number but then ask you to confirm it's credit. No way round it. Unless someone here has found a way?

Chase CO MasterCard debit worked with payusatax, but no miles
 

Today, I paid $400 of US federal estimated income tax with my Chase Continental non-preferred personal debit MasterCard via payusatax for just the $3.89 flat fee, but the transaction posted to my account without the "CA*" code that indicates earnings of Continetnal Airline OnePass miles. So, I probably won't get any miles for it. [Edit 8/24/2010: A ray of hope! A test retail transaction also did not show "CA*" while "Pending." Maybe "CA*" is only added after the transaction is no longer pending. Stay tuned.] [Edit 8/26/2010: It again looks like I will not get the miles. The transactions are no longer "pending" and the tax payment is not maked "CA*" while the test retail transaction after it is.]

The other debit payment processors mentioned in http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=101316,00.html apparently do not support debit MasterCard except as a credit card for the credit card fee. I suspect that payusatax's support is related to their announcement in April 2010 of some degree of MasterCard support (see http://pul.se/payUSAtax-Now-Accepts-...u,bxY1fELlJ18E ).

The rest of this message is probably only of interest to people who want to test other debit cards or attempt to duplicate DCBob's success with SunTrust/Delta (messages 51 and 64).

For anyone who wants to test other debit cards, when you fill out the "Payment Information" screen with your debit card number and click "Continue, you will be prompted with three buttons, "Back", "Process as Debit Card" and "Continue". Do not click "Process as Debit Card" (although your browser back button will bring you back here if you make this mistake), but instead click "Continue" again, and it will show you the $3.89 price.

When I did that, the next screen only showed the Star, NYCE and Pulse logos. I would be interested in hearing from anyone attepmting to reproduce DCBob's success in getting Delta miles this way with his SunTrust debit card what logos they see on this page, just on the off chance that the choice of debit network is related to why DCBob scored miles from this technique. By the way, for anyone considering trying to duplicate DCBob's success, it looks like Suntrust is having some kind of double miles promotion for their Delta debit cards (new customers only?) until the end of the month (see https://www.suntrust.com/portal/serv...heck_card/1905 ).

For anyone considering contributing to this research by trying other debit cards, here are a few notes. BofA explicitly disqualifies tax payments from earning rewards in the descriptions of their USAir and Alaska debit cards. Before getting involced with perkstreet.com for their claimed 2% cash back visa debit card please read the warnings by user AV at http://www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com...-2-cash-offer/ . Finally, be aware that the Chase RealCash debit card does not award any cash back for purcahses outside of their selected categories. I believe I have also read at least one report of Citi denying points for some cash-like but non-PIN debit card purchase on the grounds that it was not "signature-based." Other debit rewards cards I know of are: Wells Fargo (have to pay $12/year, for which you earn 0.25%), Chase Ultimate Rewards (0.8% cash capped at $300 a year, but remaining points can be used for other rewards), and Chase Debit United Mileage Plus debit card.

I don't know if any other cards are worth testing at this point, but if you're planning to pay your taxes by debit card using one of the flat fee services for whatever reason, I am sure it would be useful to hear about your results, if for no other reason that to scratch other cards off of the list.

Bummer. Thanks for posting. I did a test run last quarter of $500 on my CO preferred chase debit and I got miles. I was planning to do a big payment on the card for Q3, but it sounds from your experience that they have closed the loophole. I still might try it -- I have to pay my taxes anyway and $4 is worth a shot.

Apparently no miles for Chase CO debit tax payment
 

My $400 payusatax federal estimated income tax payment from my Chase Continental non-preferred personal debit MasterCard, for which payusatax charged me the $3.89 debit/ATM card fee, is no longer listed as "pending" in my Chase online banking activity report. The transaction description lacks the the "CA*" prefix that normally indicates a transaction will earn Continental Airlines miles, even though a retail purchase that I made after that got the "CA*" prefix. So, it again looks like my tax payment will not earn miles.

To avoid giving false hope to anyone who only reads this thread partially, I have also edited the above information into my original message #75.

More debit cards if anyone wants to test them
 

In case anyone would be interested in testing paying tax with other debit cards, I posted some pointers to about 40 rewards debit cards, at least 9 of which pay some rewward for PIN transactions, at http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...t-cards-2.html , message #24.

Has anyone had luck using a Citibank ATM (Mastercard) card? After seeing skynerd's post that a Continental Chase MC Debit card worked, I tried my Citi Debit card again on PayUSATax.com but, despite selecting Debit, when I submit it, it wants to charge me the full 2% fee, not $3.89

Any advice?

The non-preferred CO Chase MC Debit card did not earn miles for me, but the preferred version of the card reportedly worked for Ikar (message 78) and a card from another bank worked for DCBob (post 64). To get the $3.89 flat price from payusatax, as Ikar explained in post 63, you have to click "continue" instead of "debit card". Anyhow, the user interface has "back" buttons, so you should be able to try other answers if you are not seeing the $3.89 flat price.

If you still have trouble getting the $3.89 flat price on payusatax, please feel free to send me a private message and I will try to help. I made screen snapshots of most of my steps, which I can refer to, but many have my private information in them.

It would be interesting to learn what results you get and exactly which kind of Citi debit card you use (I assume it earns some kind of rewards, right?).

I'm just baffled. I can't enter the card number unless I choose credit, debit, or bill me later. I choose debit, type in my debit card number, click Continue, and the fee is over a hundred dollars. The Citi debit card earns Thank You points, BTW.

Will send you a PM as well.

Paying tax with 2 mile/$ AmEx or 1.5 - 2 mile/$ Visa
 

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfr...es-per-dollar/ and http://boardingarea.com/blogs/tmtrav...a-card-holder/ mention that the Fidelity Investment Rewards Visa and American Express now offer a redemption option to Star Alliance member Air Canada's Aeroplan miles that works out to 2 miles/$ for the AmEx and 1.5 mile/$ for the Visa (and 2 mile/$ after $15k/year). This is basically the best non-promotional mileage redemption I have heard of, and works out to the following cost per mile for paying US federal income taxes on line:

officialpayments.com or pay1040.com with American Express:
2.35% fee / (2.0 mile/$) = 1.175 cent/mile

payusatax.com with Visa:
less than $15k/year spent: 1.95% fee / (1.5 mile/$) = 1.3 cent/mile
more than $15k/year spent: 1.95% fee / (2.0 mile/$) = 0.975 cent/mile
[Edit 9/23/2010: Thank you Ikar for pointing out that payusatax now rejects Visa credit cards. I verified that this is specifically the case with my Fidelity Visa.]