Thursday, February 5, 2009

Taxes

For the first time in my adult life, I am attempting to do my own taxes. I'm sure that I will find out as I grow up why people groan when they hear it's tax season. But until then, my main concern is doing it right. In years past I've noticed that the library offers free tax prep type classes where they explain which form means what, so I plan to check that out. And my uncle suggested getting Turbo Tax.

The reason why I am doing my own taxes this year is to a) save money and b) to learn and c) because last year my tax ppl screwed it up royally. We used to have the same lady do our taxes until she retired. And last year was a mess because they didn't meet the deadline for one, and for two, they totally forgot to file mine! Yes, you read that right. I called them to follow up on an e-file form they had sent me only to find out they didn't have me in the system. So, I'm pretty sure that I can do a better job.

Do you have any tax-related advice/tips?

3 comments:

Betts said...

Turbotax makes tas prep soooo easy. I did my own until we had stocks, and I can't get my head wrapped around all the capital gain and loss stuff. Now I have people, but they're good reliable people.

amna said...

oh god, i wish i did :( its a cruel world out there that's waiting to take most of your money away from you which you'd otherwise use to get shoes, clothes or food..

good luck!

Anonymous said...

I've never used TurboTax, but there are some excellent free alternatives out there. This year, I used http://www.taxact.com/ which was great and FREE for your federal return. The state return was like $14.

In the past I've used H&R Block's TaxCut, which I also really enjoyed. If you look around, you can usually find a coupon somewhere to get it for free.

Actually, I lied. I used a trial version of TaxCut once, and I didn't like it as much as the other two that I mentioned. Overall, they are almost the same, but I thought the other two were slightly easier to use AND much cheaper.

Good luck, which ever you chose! :-)