{"id":13544,"date":"2026-04-14T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=13544"},"modified":"2026-04-13T18:57:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T00:57:43","slug":"tuesday-tangent-tax-time-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/14\/tuesday-tangent-tax-time-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Tangent: Tax-Time Tips"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Taxes and manufactured spend are often intertwined and given that taxes are sort of due tomorrow, let&#8217;s focus on some churning centric tips. Before that though, it&#8217;s time for my periodic reminder that I&#8217;m not a financial professional and I&#8217;m definitely not your financial professional, but I do know how to spell professional without autocorrect so that&#8217;s <em>something<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, let&#8217;s start with deadlines:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Your 2025 tax return or extension is probably due tomorrow<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Your 2025 tax bill is probably due tomorrow<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Your 2026 Q1 estimated taxes are probably due tomorrow<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Next, information on payments:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>You can pay taxes with a credit card or debit card\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.officialpayments.com\/index.jsp\">ACI<\/a>: credit fees 1.85%-2.95%, debit fees $2.10 (2x per tax form)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pay1040.com\">Pay1040<\/a>: credit fees 1.75%-2.89%, debit fees $2.15 (2x per tax form)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/plastiq.com\/\">Plastiq<\/a>: card fees 2.99% + $1.49<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/meliopayments.com\/\">Melio<\/a>: card fees: 2.9%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you&#8217;re seeing higher fees when paying with a card, try wrapping it in PayPal<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Ok cool, now how you can get something out of this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Consider hitting your minimum spend with a new credit card<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>American Express, Capital One, and sometimes Chase offer virtual numbers instantly upon approval<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Look for an American Express upgrade offer before paying your taxes, like say from a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanexpress.com\/us\/credit-cards\/card\/platinum\/?intlink=us-en-hp-ug-platinum\">Personal Green or Gold to a Personal Platinum<\/a> or a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanexpress.com\/en-us\/credit-cards\/apply\/upgrade\/personal-card\/delta-skymiles-reserve-american-express-card\/38133-K5ZR0125EC\">Delta Platinum to a Delta Reserve<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/15\/psa-the-easiest-day-for-tax-related-manufactured-spend-is-probably-today\/\">Overpayments are a valid form of manufactured spend<\/a>, but (rarely) the IRS may hold them for a while so be prepared<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>And finally, some gotchas:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Churners have lots of 1099s because reasons, and when there are lots it&#8217;s easy to miss one. If that sounds like you, consider waiting until June for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/individuals\/get-transcript\">your IRS transcript<\/a> to be fully populated and use it to cross reference your paperwork<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Not all 1099s have taxable income, and not all taxable income has a 1099<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Good luck, and I&#8217;m sorry for the time-suck you&#8217;re going to have to endure dealing with this.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"225\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image-6.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13546\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image-6.png 225w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image-6-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">Too soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taxes and manufactured spend are often intertwined and given that taxes are sort of due tomorrow, let&#8217;s focus on some churning centric tips. Before that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[54,12,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-credit-cards","category-ms-hints","category-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13544"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13549,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13544\/revisions\/13549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}