Tax time!

buynow

This is my first year of filing a tax return. I don't know what sort of drunken donkey (or elephant) wrote the tax code but it really is a mess.

Good news is that I discovered that the tax stimulus that was paid out last spring was actually an advance credit on 2008 taxes so I still qualify for it.

Do not call the IRS if you any questions about tax returns. They are clueless, a text to speech generator that randomly quoted paragraphs from their website would do a better job.

Overheal

Ive never filed a Tax Return either (having no income atm), but TurboTax apparently makes the process much much easier. My Pappy swears by it and when it comes to going blind on paperwork he is a sharp noodle.

chalad07

This was my first time doing taxes as well, and i was dreading it. It actually turns out to be a pretty painless process. Like Overheal mentioned, i was Turbotax.com, it's free, and you end up getting your tax back in about 2 weeks, paid directly into your account,

My return is pretty simple, one source of income etc, no mortgage so this was the best way to go. If you're in a position that you have multiple sources of income, (e.g. investments, interest, dividends) and lots of different deductions (e.g.student loan, dependants) then you may be better shelling out for an accountant to take you through the process. As far as i know they're not too expensive,

Anyway.. if it's simple - just use turbotax. Will take you about half an hour, and it's hard to go wrong!

buynow

I have tried turbo tax (well the free online version). It is okay, it is a bit fiddly about some things that are outside of straight forward income. Its bit for state returns seemed to be flat out wrong for me, I was living in one, working in an other.

I eventually found the solution to my scenario deep in a paragraph in one of their publications, so I don't think I will bother with the accountant.

The IRS help line is actually dangerous. It is basically badly trained people reading the website to you, and the guy I had was really slow at it and really bad at interpreting what he was reading. I eventually just gave up on him.

chalad07

The tax code really confused me, so it was a case of giving up trying to understand where this rebate was coming from, and just filling in all the info, and waiting for the computer to spit back a number to me,

To be honest this suited me fine, it was more than i was expecting. It works very different back in Ireland, where theres no such thing as an annual rebate.

Ruu_Old

My wife and I have jobs, 401k, mutual funds and mortgage. Turbotax still makes it easy. As mentioned, you can get it free but think you have to pay for state e-filing (with Turbotax?) I e-filed my federal taxes and got payment in about 2 weeks and my state was similar but I e-filed directly on the Illinois department of revenue website instead of turbotax. All money spent.