It is tax filing season again. I have only two tips for the typical tax-payer:
1. File your tax yourself. Use a program like TurboTax Deluxe or H&R Block TaxCut Premium to file yourself.
2. Do not e-file. File your tax returns by paper.
File Yourself
If you are filing taxes as an individual or a married person or a small business owner, you can and should try filing yourself. Professional accountants charge anywhere from 70 bucks to several hundred bucks to do your taxes. There is absolutely no need to waste your money on them. I paid hundreds of dollars to accountants to file my taxes for the past several years. I used TurboTax for the past couple of years and have been amazed at what a breeze it is to do your taxes yourself. I was able to do my taxes in just a couple of hours, one evening. I am never going to use an accountant again, unless I am so super rich, I don't know the value of my wealth myself. The cost of the TurboTax software was little over 35 bucks in Costco. With a $15 rebate coupon that Costco sent me earlier this year, the cost of filing my taxes was well under $24! What a sweet deal! And that included the cost of postage to send my filing papers, which brings us to the next topic...
File by paper. Do not e-file.
E-filing taxes in the US is nothing but a rip-off. Depending on which company you e-file through, expect to spend anywhere from 25 to 35 bucks or more for e-filing. That is disgusting! It should be cheaper to e-file than to file through paper. Read my full rant about e-filing costs in last year's post: Why should e-filing of US taxes cost more? As long as people continue to pay such ridiculously unreasonable amounts for e-filing, companies will keep ripping us off. It is high time all the US taxpayers say a collective 'NO' to paying such high amounts for e-filing. So, don't e-file. File early and send your filing by paper. This year, I mailed my tax papers on 8th Feb. My state refund was available in my bank account on 21st Feb and my federal refund on the 26th.
Happy filing everybody.
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What does this have to do with Gyaan? :)
ReplyDeleteSounds ridiculous! What has socio-economics come to. Pay taxes, and then pay money to file the taxes. Here in Oz-land, the Australian Taxation Office has their own (free) online tax filing software. Its quite simple to use (and there's inbuilt help for almost everything else).
ReplyDeleteAnyways, stay well mate!