13 responses

• todd Apr 14, 2008
   

  jessica: you do this stuff on paper and pencil? i use webturbotax.com . they do that standard deduction stuff for you. they also handle 27.5 year straight-line depreciation of a rental property owned jointly by two unmarried people who split the costs. and stuff like that.
  
  i did my taxes a couple of weeks ago and got the money last week (and am using it as part of the downpayment on a house in pittsburgh in two weeks) .

   
• Jim Cowie Apr 14, 2008
   

  I also give turbotax a thumbs-up. I was reluctant for years .. but it really is a good application. And the biggest payoff is when you come back the next year .. and they already have all of your previous-year stuff for comparison and sanity-checking.

   
• Jim Cowie Apr 14, 2008
   

  The only thing I thought was a little weird was when they offered to walk me through my New Hampshire tax return. Hm, says I. NH has no income tax. If I have to file some kind of weird consulting-income business enterprise tax return or something, I better find out now. So they walk me through the questionnaire, about 2 minutes, and sure enough, I don't have to file anything. But when I'm checking out, there's an extra $29.99 fee for my state return They did allow me to simply delete the charge before paying, but it seemed a little weird.

   
• smckenzie23 Apr 14, 2008
   

  Does turbo-tax handle filing in 2 countries? It would be nice if it could handle both my Canadian and US taxes... Almost as nice as dropping off a box of files at the accountant's office... Well, maybe not.

   
• jessica Apr 14, 2008
   

  I've used TurboTax to prepare my federal return before. I have not found that it remembers my information each year. I just write that off as my ability to break software. I enter my data each time. It did save me a few hundred dollars once because I forgot to take a deduction it caught when I was entering all of my data. I wish it were more intuitive. I almost always have problems figuring out where it hides various blanks. I like to save money wherever I can, so I don't want to pay the extra fees to file online or pay for the different state modules. Like Jim, TurboTax tried to tell me I needed to file New Hampshire income tax, so I checked the New Hampshire Department of Revenue's website just to be sure there wasn't a major change in the tax law.

   
• Jeff Apr 15, 2008
   

  I've used turbotax now for 5 or 6 years. Yes, it costs me 110$ now, but it's far easier than doing it myself. For some reason this year it forgot my info from last year, so I had to fill it in by hand, but no big deal. What's nice is that most large banks and investment firms are online, so it can suck all your stock and bank info in electronically, with no typing.

   
• jessica Apr 15, 2008
   

  I guess I'm just special that I don't have that luck, either. Each year, I check the box that says "Please pester my financial institutions to come into the modern era and share their info with TurboTax" but so far, they have not. I'm not surprised one institution is not sharing their records, but I am surprised another one isn't. It seems like it's popular enough, I would think there would be high demand for it to share its info.

   
• todd Apr 15, 2008
   

  let me make a suggestion to you people: stop making and spending money. then you won't even have to file.

   
• jhota Apr 15, 2008
   

  i finished off spending my tax refund about a month ago. now i just need that economy stimulus check.

   
• jessica Apr 15, 2008
   

  Oh, I keep forgetting about the economy stimulus check!

   
• smckenzie23 Apr 15, 2008
   

  I'm hoping I can pick up the economic stimulus check without having to actually pay any taxes to the US (like I have with the child credit in the past)

   
• smckenzie23 Apr 15, 2008
   

  Wonder if Dubya will find out he cut me a Canadian stimulus check? I'm going to spend it all on Poutine and Toques.

   
• jessica Apr 15, 2008
   

  Poutine!++