Tax Time

Hey,
Up until last year, I did my taxes by hand (including Christian's personal and business taxes), so I feel pretty competent when it comes to stuff like that. I had to do four years in a row of his personal and business back taxes that he had never taken care of, so yeah, I got really good really fast at that crap!!

Last year, I used a free online tax filing service since Christian didn't have any business stuff, so it was simple and easy to just do it online.

This year, I have to itemize since I now own a house, and the free online services usually won't accommodate people who do not take the standard deduction and itemize instead. What program do those of you that do your own taxes and itemize use? My mom (who is a CPA) recommends TurboTax.

Just want to get some opinions.

I know that if you go through the IRS e-file web site, it will list a bunch of free services. Some allowing itemization, some just standard and some doing both and it checks to see which gets the best return. The site is usually printed somewhere on your W-2 that you should be getting in less than a month. Going to take ours to a tax guy this year since my wife started her own little side business. Just dont have the want to do it myself when I can pay someone a little bit of money to do it for me

I hear ya!! Christian had 5 years worth of personal and business taxes that he neglected to do! I took all his stuff to H&R Block, had the tax guy walk me through one year's worth, showing me step by step how to do them, and then I did the rest of them myself, following his blueprint. The one year that Block did for us was NOT cheap. It would have cost a fortune for the tax professional to do the rest of the years as well. You should do the same if you have time -- turns out it's actually very easy to learn how to do yourself. I even learned how to do all those depreciation calculations for business property like laptops and cars!! I was quite proud of myself

The guy I went to last year was less than 100 bucks. When it was just me, I did them myself all the time. I just dont have time anymore to do them.

One year of Christian's business taxes cost around $400 to get done professionally. It costs more to get business done than personal.

I do Turbo Tax with my parents and it is super easy!

Hell once I had damian I stopped doing my taxes by myself. And now that I also own a house its so worth paying the money than risking screwing something up and missing out on a ton of cash. Tax time is very important now!

Turbo Tax will FIND you a bunch of deductions, I used that program until 2 years ago. That being said I use an accountant to prepare mine now, as I am frequently laid off and need the instant refund to make ends meet.

Biff if you need an accountant in the end I can recommend 2 different ones. One big time corporate and one smaller one. Just in case.

Biff, I can't reccomend TurboTax highly enough. It will find all kinds of stuff for you, and the business level one (which is more than $50 I think but well worth it) will take you to school on all kinds of legit deductions.
IME HR Block is like eating at McDonalds--waste of time and will leave you upset. One of my coworkers used them last year and missed a huge mileage deduction he should have gotten for his travel to temporary jobsites (at 50 or so cents per mile x 30k miles, that's a big deal!). I told him to file a revision and spank his preparer, because instead of PAYING $600 to Uncle Sam, with that revision he got over a grand refund. Turbo Tax would have found that for him.