Tax Season - Accountant or Turbo Tax

February 4th, 2010 - Well we are officially in 'tax season'. My mailbox is being flooded with W-2's, 1099's, 1098's, and all the other forms that need to be weeded through to get to the magical answer...Do I owe, in which case I will not mail my return until 11:59 p.m. on April 15. Or do I get a refund, in which case I will spend the entire day on Saturday making sure it is completed, signed, copied and sent through e-mail.

After years of paying a tax accountant, I figured it was time I handled this myself. I mean, how hard can it be. I will just download turbo tax, and let the software do the work. All I have to do is answer a few questions, fill in the information asked for, and move to the next page. Easy. Oh yeah, and while doing this try not to get too distracted by the little piece of information in the upper right hand corner. You know the place that tells you line by line whether you have a refund or whether you owe money. So I downloaded the software and began. There is one thing about the software that is annoying. Everytime you answer a question it asks you something else related to the question to make sure you really did answer the question correctly. For example, Are you married? Single? Widowed? or Divorced? Widowed. Next question, When were you widowed? In 2007. Well the system then let me know I am not a widow I am single. Seems in tax jargon widow only has meaning for your first year. Next question, Do you have any dependents? NO. Anyone who lives with you? NO. Do you support your mother or father at least 50 % of the time? NO. Do you have any children living at home? NO...two clicks later I learned that I truely have absolutely NO dependents. Also at this time I have no refund due and I do not owe any money. Part two, time to enter your income: W-2's, interest earned, dividends, tax refunds, outside income, tips, alimony, etc. With each entry you see the amount you owe go up. My heart was beating and my palms were getting sweaty, oh my god, what am I going to do, I can't owe that much, how can you owe more than you actually cleared all year. I was really scared, but then I realized now I get to put in all the deductions, and boy do they add up. Let's see there is interest on the house, and real estate taxes, and then medical, no that doesn't count, not enough out of my own pocket. Easy for them to say, it wasn't, their pocket. Oh yes, donations, this is good, I never pass up anyone asking for money with out giving money, oh you need a receipt for each one, oh, ok skip donations. Maybe Sales tax, oh, oh I see you need all the receips and then then it has to be more than 10 % of your income after it is reduced to taxable, and only if it is more than the calculated amount from the government. Oh, let's skip that as well. And so it went, education refund, NO. Child Care allocation, NO. Rental Property taxes, NO. No. NO...but wait, somewhere in all these questions I entered just enough to bring me out of the 'I Owe bucket' and into the 'Refund' bucket.

With the 'Refund' bucket highlighted I finished my return with a smile. I thought doing my taxes myself would be very hard, confusing and time consuming. Turns out I was only partially right. It was not hard (even for me), and not overly confusing (no more than following an Ina Gartner recipe), but it was time consuming. Plan on an entire afternoon to work on them. But oh the benefits. Turns out I am getting a big refund, huge. Not only could I pay for the software that I used to file my taxes, but I will have enough money left over to get a big file cabinet for all the receipts that I know now I have to hold on to for next year.