The wife and I were talking last night about getting our taxes done, and we are thinking about doing them ourselves using turbo tax or similiar program. We don't have a ton of deductions, but we have some.....Interest paid on the house, baby girl, property taxes, mileage for traveling during work, charity donations ect....I might be missing a couple, but they are pretty basic I think.

We normally pay someone to do it, but do any of you use turbo tax or any other program to file your own taxes? I'm especially interested in hearing from people who own a house and have several deductions.

 

I would personally go with Turbo Tax. Paying someone to do your taxes is a rip-of unless you have some special circumstances IMHO.

Turbo Tax covers most of the common deductions like house, kids, etc. I have used it for the last few years with no complaints.

 

I just bought a house. TurboTax makes my life easier. I've got pretty complicated taxes normally and TT has always beaten H&R Block. It really helps with the California return too which is always a mega bitch since it's based on your federal (loosely). I've got the past 5 years of taxes available as PDF's too... so if I ever need prior year tax info I just go to TT and log in. I don't normally recommend doing financial business online but in this case I do. They also have audit defense which helps if you have weird stuff like ESPP's.

 

Perfect, that's the info I was looking for. I'm going to give it a shot I think. We normally just go to HR block, and last year we got a guy who was pretty good about trying to do everything he could for us, but it was $150. Just trying to cut back on cost.

 

We used TT again this year with great results. fast, easy, and they save all your info for next years returns too. (which you will need, to file next year). Plus you can itemize just like with an accountant. It will walk you through step by step if you have the required percentage needed to itemize. ( 25% I believe).

Another thing to remember EVERYONE, is the standard deduction has risen for 2008, It is much better for anyone not itemizing but still claiming mortgages, and such. I even got a deduction for uniforms I wear at work, without itemizing.. Good luck, and lets spend that money on American stuff..

 

If Turbo Tax doesn't work well for you, let me know. I can give you the name of our tax guy who is good. Fair priced and honest guy. My wife's dad has been using him for awhile I believe and he makes 200K so I figure if he trusts him with all that stuff then he must be good. He's in Dublin by the way.

 

With a wife, house, 2nd mortgage, stocks, 2 kids..... i dont even bother doing it myself, i defaintly would rather pay somone who knows how to do it.

especially if you can get some audit protection, cause the last thing you want is to both something up, get 4,000 back in a return, get audited, then owe the govt 2,300 all of the sudden.

 

You are correct sir. Plus these guys can actually find stuff you would have had no idea for deductions. last year we took a deduction for our new computer because my wife had an online business, plus mileage cost's to the post office to ship stuff from the business..

But we settled with the new standard deduction this year, and I didn't have to pay again. I'm happy..

LOL, I got people, is great if you have any concerns or like you said Jack, lots of options on the table..

 

Go with TurboTax. Turbo tax gives step by step intruction while finding all possible deductions. Its rather very easy if you know how to read...

I USE to go to HR Block and have them do my taxes but I was being charged like $200 for them to do it. SHEESH. With Turbo Tax I pay only $39.00 and I am still getting the same amount of refund I would have with HR Block doing my taxes...

H&R Block =RIP OFF
Jackson Hewitt= RIP OFF

 

the thing is people are scared to do there own taxes so they settle for places like h&r block

 

the thing is that H&R block is going to do exactly the same thing as TT but less well. I've done both... I went to H&R because I thought I couldn't have done it right using Turbo Tax (one year) and when I went to H&R it cost me an additional 150 bucks to find out that they use the equivalent of TT while they interview you. they're not a goddamned bit more helpful and in many cases only serve to confuse the issue. fuq H&R Block... TT gets my 40 bucks again this year. If you can't do it right with TT... you should not have a job. It's really that easy. You just can't screw it up if you answer the questions honestly.

on a side note.... the house purchase and perfect planning has left me a ~9K refund. Gunna re-pipe my new house, move a few things around (washer/dryer, new shower to replace a broken one) and pay off as much of my revolving debt as I can. I'm finally on track to being able to enjoy the fruits of a lifetime of hard work ( = spend my own money instead of letting congress spend it)

 

I ended up using TT delux and we are[INDENT]getting a $200 federal refund, and $1,300 from the state. I probably should have paid someone to do them because last year my wife and I made $40k more and recieved quite a bit more back. I'm thinking it was due to us taking more taxes out of our paycheck, but when times started getting tough I changed my payroll deductions. Also my wife cashed out some of her 401k so that hurt us, but overall we made $40k less.....booooooo. Wife got laid off from Wachovia.

 

you're going to love that IOU from the state... they're not sending checks, they're sending IOU's. I'm only getting like 80 bucks from them so I ain't trippin'. I would have had a really skinny refund if the house purchase didn't finalize before the end of the year but it closed in time so I got to take the $7500 credit