Get airline miles for paying your taxes

[David Waldmann]

Just saw this on The Points Guy. From http://thepointsguy.com/2013/07/top-...it-card-perks/

10. Make tax payments using your miles-earning debit card:

Although the Delta Skymiles World Check Card from Suntrust doesn’t have a great sign up bonus (only 5,000 miles after your first purchase), using a miles-earning debit card to pay your taxes can help you rake in tons of miles. When processing tax payments online or by phone using a debit card, you only incur fees that are nominal compared to those that are charged when you use a credit card to pay your taxes. Here is the official government list of approved tax payment vendors and the rates they charge for using a credit card versus a debit card to pay taxes:


For example, let’s say you owed $20,000 in taxes – not uncommon for small businesses or those who take a lot of exceptions on their payroll taxes. If you were to pay using PayUSATax.com, you would incur a fee of either $378 for using a credit card, or just $3.49 for using a debit card asavings of 99.1%!

To put it another way, if you use a credit card, you’re essentially paying 1.89 cents each for those Delta miles – just about half what the airline would charge you for them if you were just to buy them directly at the usual rate of 3.5 cents each plus fees. However, by using a debit card, you’re paying 0.01745 cents per mile. An amazing value considering you have to spend this money anyway and I personally used this to rack up SkyMiles on the cheap earlier this year.

You can pay payroll taxes (940, 941) as well as 1040 based taxes (including estimated).

The only drawback I can see is needing to have a second checking account and a good way to transfer the needed money into it. I haven't checked into it, but based on my experience, recent changes allow direct transfer from checking accounts online. I need to figure this out as I can see earning huge points this way.

 

[Paul Cascio]

Good find, thanks.