johnjrval424 said:
What tax preparation software do you use and how thorough is it?
Just curious. I've been using TurboTax but have used Kiplinger's TaxCut. I debate this every year since both of them appeared to be pretty user-friendly but I wonder if one maximizes the deductions over the other.
I need all the help I can get in the deductions category.
Use to use Turbo Tax all the time, but it always p!ssed me off that while I could file federal right away, I could never get state soon enough. I never got decent records and I was never sure if I did everything right.
A few years ago, my girlfriend and now wife took me to Jackson Hewitt. Yeah, they charge, and if your taxes are substantial, you're paying a bit. LAST year, I *worked* for HR Block, so mine was free.
And here's why I mention it - if you have a friend who works there, they have the "right" to do a few for free. Mainly family, perhaps a friend and they encourage to do perhaps ONE in the event of someone hard on their luck and in a bind. It's good PR that a preparer will do one for free, although it means he doesn't make a dime for an hour of his time. The one tiny advantage of a tax preparer is that they assume responsibility in case of error (but not in case of deliberate fraud).
On the other hand --
Geez, it took me a while to realize that when you file electronically, the hard copy stays with you, permanently. It's absolutely up to you to keep copies of everything in lieu of an audit at that point. For some reason, I thought you still had to mail even after you filed electronically. We had drawers full of old returns, and it finally dawned on me that's where the permanent storage was - right there, in HR Blcok and not the IRS.
If I could be SURE I'd record everything right, I'd do it myself - but I'd probably use HR Block's software. I guess they did sell me on the idea that they INVENTED the thing.
Same here. Had MD refund in a couple days.
