We owed $6500 this year. Sounds like lot? It is. We actually would have been okay if we hadn't rolled $60k from a 401k into a Roth IRA for my DH and paid the taxes on it.

We did this to fill the 25% bracket we are in and tax advantage of being here for this year. I'm not sure where we will be in the future but I think it's reasonable to guess we might not be able to take advantage of it again for awhile.

That being said we rolled DH's old 401k to new 401k and took a $60k distribution. This way we aren't holding a rollover IRA and that will prevent us from doing a clean back door roth ira annually. Otherwise we have to calculate across all pre-tax IRA dollars the amount we are rolling over. We can now contribute to a non-deductible IRA and roll it to a Roth IRA every year still.

I have to say I'm hoping they streamline the tax laws. I'm curious if the breaks will only be for the rich.

I'm crazy busy working nightly right now and loving it. I will admit it is fun to do taxes.