Getting Ready for Tax Season
February is winding down, and we now have pretty much all of the documentation that we’ll need to file our taxes. A few months ago I had resolved in my mind that this was the year we’d start using an accountant to prepare our taxes. I’ve used Turbo Tax for the past four or five years, and before that I did it entirely by hand. However, I’m now starting to waffle. Truth be told, I actually like preparing our taxes. I enjoy digging into the numbers and seeing everything firsthand. One of the main reasons I was going to use a pro this year is that our taxes will be more complex than normal — but that’s what’s so intriguing about them!
I also like the flexibility of not having to get everything pulled together and organized in advance. I have little doubt that if we use an accountant, I’ll forget at least a few forms or other pieces of documentation and will have to shuttle things back and forth before all is said and done. In contrast, when I’m preparing things myself and I run into a missing bit of information, I just take a break and hunt it down. While it ends up being somewhat of a marathon session, I can typically get it done in a long evening.
Hmmm… What’s a guy to do?
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Modified on February 26th, 2007 - 5 Comments
Filed under: Taxes
About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!
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February 22nd, 2007 at 11:56 am
I am still hiring a pro, despite being used to doing my own taxes. I want some advice on the best way to manage the accounting for my sole propriotorship and want to avoid the whole audit thing because I didn’t doing something correctly.
I’ve gone from a single income renter to a first time home owning married guy with 1.75 full time salaries (last year, only 1 this year), law school bills, and sole propriotership income and outgo.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:58 am
Nothing wrong (other than time & money) with doing your own taxes, then having the pro give a ’second opinion’. If you were going to go to the pro, you’d have spent that money anyway. And by also doing it yourself, you have a little peace of mind that your preparer didn’t miss something.
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:02 am
Paying tax is a serious task. We should be organize to pay them in time. We definitely don’t want the consequences of not paying our taxes in time.
February 23rd, 2007 at 11:04 am
After redoing my taxes on TaxCut Online twice, I’m seriously considering taking them into H&R Block. I owe money this year (which isn’t a bad thing overall, but it was unexpected), and I want to see if they can minimize the impact.
Any idea how much I should expect to pay at H&R Block for a generally simple return (1040 and a few schedules)?
March 1st, 2009 at 6:46 pm
I am a retired wife with a sick husband. It is the FIRST time that I will be getting everything together to go to the accountant who will prepare our federal tax return. Where do I start? Is there is list or a procedure that will help me do this in an efficient manner.
Thanks for your help
Shirley