Do you pay to have your taxes done?

[sweeps]

Re: Do you pay to have your taxes done?

Last year got $7500 for a refund

Are your refunds always that big? You saved $50 on tax preparation, but you missed out on $137.50 in interest (@4%) by lending free money to the government.

[JoyJoy]

Re: Do you pay to have your taxes done?

We do our own taxes. Only time we may contact a tax service/accountant is when there is a change in our financial situation from the year before and that has to be a change whereby we don't know what we're eligible to deduct. Taxes can be confusing but if it is a normal 12 month income year, we do them ourselves. We filed our Fed on 1/19/06 (by hand) and received our refund back on 2/3/06.

[abowers]

Re: Do you pay to have your taxes done?

I've done my taxes on my own, ever since I got my first real job in 10th grade.

This has included reporting income from 4 W2's and income that I didn't have W2's from.
And this year, I made it a big learning experience. I did my own taxes which involved 2 W2's from NY, and one W2 from NJ, but part of the NJ income being while I was still a NY resident...
So I had a NJ non-resident, and regular tax form. And for NY I had a part-year resident form, a form for the income I made in NJ while a NY resident, and a form deducting the money that would have been taxed by both states.

And I did my federal return. I was pleased to find that I could deduct the interest I've paid on my student loans, and I was able to enjoy the larger deductible as my first year of not being a dependent on my parent's returns. I E-filed my federal return through a free program on Turbo Tax -- (free because I make less than $100k/year) largely so I could get my refund faster than filing on paper. -- and so the IRS has already approved my form and I am expecting my $650 refund sometime next week! All state paperwork will be mailed in, on the actual paper forms.

As confusing as it was (especially with figuring out returns for 2 states), it took up most of a Saturday afternoon/evening, but it was satisfying to finish, knowing I did it by myself!

[Lostsoul33]

Re: Do you pay to have your taxes done?

We've always paid to have our taxes done and will pay again this year to get them done.

[jodi]

Re: Do you pay to have your taxes done?

I have always done mine myself - the one exception being the first year I was a real estate agent (technically self-employed since I am an independent contractor for my broker). I went through my credit union, watched how they did them, and have done them that way every year since. My dad buys Turbo Tax every year and we all do our taxes on it - my parents, brothers, DH and I...last year I even did my BIL's for him on it too. I think Turbo Tax is great - we are going to get back a lot this year as DH was unemployed for part of the year. I don't think we would have caught all the credits on our own.

[LittleGopher]

Re: Do you pay to have your taxes done?

I do ours, without tax software. The only time we've had our taxes done by someone else was when my husband and I each had our own home businesses. The person who did our taxes was an accountant friend of my in-laws and did their taxes, and she was very cheap. Then she retired and we ended the businesses, so I was back to doing it myself. Most years, we use 1040A, though every year I check to see if our itemized deductions add up to more than the standard deduction.

[frugalfarmwife]

Re: Do you pay to have your taxes done?

We pay to have ours done, with the farm there are so many various catagories and deductions, along with everything else that it's just simpler that way.

kj

[cercis]

Re: Do you pay to have your taxes done?

My MIL is a CPA (and a bunch of other letters). She does taxes for a lot of people and she uses turbo tax. The first couple of years she let us use her turbo tax and answered questions, after that we've done them. Even when we were self employed - even when we had 2 or more businesses.

I generally do them on turbo tax and H&R Block online and go with which one works out best (there are generally differences even with the exact same figures).

[Snoopy2645]

Re: Do you pay to have your taxes done?

My mom used to work for H&R block & now she does taxes on her own so she does mine for free. Thank goodness, one is for sure I am good at math but dont understand a thing about taxes & dont even want to begin to try to understand I will leave it to my mom & sister both bookkeepers!!!

[BAGAGT1]

Re: Do you pay to have your taxes done?

I've always done my own taxes. The H&R Blocks are too expensive considering they pretty much use the same software that they sell. My Sister-In-Law is an accountant, but my taxes aren't that complex, so I still do them myself.

[Snoopy2645]

Re: Do you pay to have your taxes done?

Well when my mom worked thier she was paid for training she didnt have to pay them but she already had went to school for accounting also

[MrSwapper]

Re: Do you pay to have your taxes done?

We've gone to an accountant for the past couple years because my fiance and I were both working full time and had our own businesses on the side - too much to trust w/ ourselves

[john849]

Re: Do you pay to have your taxes done?

I pay an accountant to do all of my taxes. It doesn't cost to much, and I prefer to let someone else to do them as I have alot of other things to get done while someone else is doing them.

[BignRichfan]

Re: Do you pay to have your taxes done?

My accountant does ours for $50. I figure it's a small price to pay to make sure they are done right. A few years ago I did them and made a big booboo and had to pay the IRS back some $. So I'll stick with the professional. My taxes are done and filed already and im just waiting for my refund now.

[Lemony]

Re: Do you pay to have your taxes done?

We do our own, usually with QuickTax (Canadian TurboTax). One of our good friends is an accountant, so we can bounce questions off of him for free.