For the past 15 years CR was self employed. Filing taxes was not something I looked forward to each year. It still isn't but... Despite the accountant doing all the work, I dreaded compiling the various receipts, reports and information and ended up putting it off until the very last moment. Most years, I would ship everything off to the accountant in mid to late March and anxiously await his word on what we needed to pay. We ALWAYS had to pay (one of the downsides of working for yourself). Even though it may theoretically all come out the same, mentally I would much rather have the amount deducted from my check little by little throughout the year as opposed to writing a big check quarterly or at tax time. It just seems less painful.
This is the first year in a long time that each of us just had a plain old W-2. No itemizing home office space, accounting for mileage on CR’s vehicle or 8,000 other things that may or may not be able to be deducted as a business expense. This year there was no last minute shipment to the accountant, we were all about Turbo Tax.
Depending on old you are, do you remember the days of going to the post office or local library in search of tax forms and the booklets with the income charts? My how things have changed!
Turbo Tax led me through a series of questions and before I knew it my taxes were done. As you are going through the questions, it shows you what you will be getting back at the top of the screen and the number goes up or down depending on your answers. The number changed several times for no apparent reason so I am not sure I 100% trust the process but am going to go with it as it is much easier than the alternative of putting pencil to paper. I am pretty sure the IRS knows where I live if there is an issue, right?
6 comments:
I've used Turbo Tax or Tax Cut the past 10 or so years and never had a problem. I'm trying Tax Act this year, but it's not quite as easy as Turbo Tax, so I'm trying to decide if I care enough about saving some money (probably) to mess a little more with Tax Act. Either way, we pay federal this year for the first time. :( Booooo.
My taxes are 'in process'. Not fun stuff.
Yeah. I need to do my taxes. Thanks for the reminder.
I remember doing the worksheets and all that fun stuff by hand before efiling....Wow am I glad for efiling - so much quicker and easier.
I've been using TaxCut for years and never had a problem - I'm sure you did everything right :)!
i've been using turbo tax for my entire tax filing career. aka 4.5 years. :) i just wish my return would be higher, but i know theoretically you want it to be closer to $0 because that means the government wasn't holding your money all year (and you were). still, getting that chunk back is nice! i am sure paying hurts, but at the same time it does all balance out like you said.
i got a bonus at work this year and they taxed the $&&#($ out of it when i got it so i thought for sure i'd get some back at tax time... umm yeah it doesn't look likely! i am assuming that is because of being a DINK now?
Awesome! Sounds so easy! That's what my dad uses! :0) He does my brother's taxes...we use a local CPA...although my dad is probably a whole lot cheaper! LOL
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