1. Yes.
2. No.
3. If it's large enough, Yes. Most certainly if it's OVER $2 million. Don't get too greedy or you will kill the goose that laid the golden egg - as has happened too many times on FT.
4. Not for your 2009 taxes. If you overpay your 2010 taxes, you can't get the money back until you file your 2010 return. If you file early in January, you will likely get your refund in January, not in April.

Thx for the answer. You said 2009 is fine, what do I do for 2009? Amended report?

What is everyone's thoughts on using a membership rewards amex card to pay their taxes? Official Payments offers a discounted rate of @ 2.10% fee for payments over $100k (assuming I can get the reduced rate).

Using the points for anything other than expensive flights would probably be a bad move, but am curious on people's thoughts on paying the fee and then using the points for expensive air tickets (by transferring to ff miles).

IF you value those tickets at their official published fare rather than what you would pay for them*, and IF you have no more economical way to get enough miles, it can be a good idea.

Those are both pretty big ifs. They're also both personal choices. If this works for you, nobody here can tell you that you're wrong. The most anyone can say is that they wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it.

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*Or if what you would pay for them is high enough, but for most here, it isn't.

There was a guy on another thread I use -- the one about funding accts with a CC--and since a certain acct option is no longer available, he said he was out of luck when trying to spend $1000 more on an AMEX to get a certain status.

I think he said he does buy the US mint coins, but I think in the case of trying to, say, reach a status threshold before a cut off date or something, paying a tax CC fee could be a good reason to do things... I dunno, it does depend on the user and their particular situation.

MM

I did it a couple of years ago with my SkyMiles DL Amex Platinum card.

Gave me enough for 1 mileage boost of 10K MQM and a big chunk towards a second mileage boost.

The fees I paid would have bought a round-trip ticket to Europe from SFO during the high season. So got miles for the fees and miles for the actual tax payment. In other words much more benefit than buying a ticket.

Don't regret doing it one bit. If I wrote a check, there would have been no benefits of any kind.

I used it to meet the 10k spend on a recent 100k American citibank card. In retrospect, I think it was a bad move.

Instead of the 100k card, I could have instead gotten the 75k card with a $1.5k spend. The cost, in fees, to put the additional $8500 on the card to meet the spending requirement, was $170. The incremental benefit was 25k extra miles, plus the 8670 miles generated by the tax payment. So, basically, $170 for 34k miles. Not really ideal. Not terrible, but still 2 cpm. (Overall it was great -- 110k miles for $200 -- but the option of getting the 75k card instead made it not worth it in retrospect. I should have either tried to meet the spend a different way or gotten the 75k card.)

For the Starwood Amex standard promo, which gives you 10k miles for signup and then 15k bonus miles after a $15k spend, I think it's a decent approach if you don't want to mess with coins and don't really have many other great options for meeting a large spend. You end up with 30k miles (15k bonus and 15k for the spend) for a fee of about $350. Not ideal, to be sure, but for those without other good options for meeting large spending requirements or who don't want to mess with coints, it's not bad.

Another possible use that makes sense is with credit cards that give EQM.

Looks to me like it IS a good deal - isn't it really half a cent per mile? Or $0.005? At 2 cpm, you would have to pay $680 for 34K miles.

Oh yeah -- that's right, isn't it? 1/2 cpm. I had my numerators and demoninators mixed up. But, of course that's right. I'd pay $170 for 34k miles any day. I guess I did!

Thanks for making me feel better.

I think he meant that if you haven't yet filed your 2009 return (i.e., you received extensions), you could do an estimated payment, then later file your return and get it back as (part of) any refund you were due.

I don't know of a way you can make another partial payment against a filed return, then just get it back as a refund. There may be a way, but I'm not aware of one.

Don't worry I do this all the time!

Because the answer to the question might be interesting to some of us around this time of year.

Anyone come across a double (or triple, or what-have-you) reward offer on their CC for paying taxes at any of the various tax payment processors ('Official Payments', pay1040.com, payusatax.com, etc)?

How about a reduced 'convenience fee' ?

It would be nice if it happened, but as the prior posts suggest, it has been a long time since there were any double mile offers, and a reduced convenience fee is really just the reverse side of the same coin.

Darn!

Got my hopes up when I saw this old thread revived. Thought there might be a new offer this year, but apparently not.

I'll go back to sleep now . . .

Use a rewards earning debit card, and the convenience fee is a flat $3.49 regardless of the amount of taxes paid. Works only at payusatax.com.