US - How do you plan on completing your income taxes this year?

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How do you plan on completing your income taxes this year?

  • By hand

    Votes: 5 5.8%
  • Download & install software-based program

    Votes: 31 36.0%
  • Web-based program/service

    Votes: 37 43.0%
  • Brick and mortar tax preparation service

    Votes: 12 14.0%
  • pete6032 is a booby (other)

    Votes: 1 1.2%

  • Total voters
    86

vi edit

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 28, 1999
62,484
8,345
126
I've been having it prepared the last couple years. It was close to $200 for me to do it with turbo tax with electonic deposit for state and federal. I have it professionally prepared and e-filed for about $100 more. I'm fine with that.
 

bruceb

Diamond Member
Aug 20, 2004
8,874
111
106
Why did it come to $200 ? ? TurboTax Premier is only about $70 or so (if you catch it on sale) and includes 1 State forms download to the program ... What other sneaky, unethical, greedy fees is Intuit adding to do a return ? ? ?
 

deadlyapp

Diamond Member
Apr 25, 2004
6,677
751
126
Turbo-tax again this year. About $75 for Fed & State and don't have to re-enter all my info from last year.

Until I get more complicated investments this is working fine, and my time is worth $75 to not have to do everything by hand.
 
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Reactions: Thebobo

vi edit

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 28, 1999
62,484
8,345
126
Why did it come to $200 ? ? TurboTax Premier is only about $70 or so (if you catch it on sale) and includes 1 State forms download to the program ... What other sneaky, unethical, greedy fees is Intuit adding to do a return ? ? ?

That year I may have had multiple states. Plus I've had some small business stuff to add in.
 

Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
20,612
3,834
126
Some of us are very simple.

One job, no stock trades, got all my 1099s. Took me 30 minutes using an online service.

Thinking back on it I'm not sure I would file early even if I could. Several years ago I filed before Feb and got caught in an IRS boondoggle. They poorly did a change over from year to year processing, made a mistake and didn't catch it before something like February 12th. This resulted in hours and hours of extra work on my part (along with thousands of others) and I was eventually assigned an IRS Tax Advocate before the issue was resolved in September. After that I decided to never file before the end of Feb again although the issue became moot a few years later. Thanks for beta testing the 2017 IRS process for the rest of us!
 

MrDudeMan

Lifer
Jan 15, 2001
15,069
94
91
By hand. I don't feel like jumping through hoops to get proprietary software working on a proper computer.

When I saw that two people voted for 'by hand', I knew the other was going to be you. I've used TurboTax in the past, but it's starting to piss me off. I probably spend as much time trying to figure out why their bullshit doesn't work as I would doing it by hand, so I'm going to try that this year. I have a pretty complicated return, so I'm not sure how well this will go.
 
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TXHokie

Platinum Member
Nov 16, 1999
2,558
176
106
My big motivation for getting it done early is to get a jump on tax scammers. Given that I seem to have been part of all the big hacks last year, those Euro/Russian criminals probably have all my info to do a fraudulent tax on me so just thought I'd at least claim my $5 before they do.
 

AdamK47

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
15,844
3,632
136
I filed using TurboTax since USAA members get a discount. The total for federal and state was $71.67.
 

DietDrThunder

Platinum Member
Apr 6, 2001
2,262
326
126
Already did it by hand. Now waiting for free fillable forms to go live so I can submit my return.

Same here. I do keep up with my income taxes all year long (I try to keep taxes owed/refund as close to 0 as possible), so when I get all the required forms, I can instantly do free fillable forms.
 

nOOky

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2004
3,310
2,402
136
Accountant. The wife owns a business with 2 LLC's and I don't even want to start messing with cuz I'd mess it up.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
41,243
10,416
136
Turbotax Premier. Don't know if that's really necessary but I always do it because I have investment carryover from some years ago and this package keeps track of that. I get it through Ebay, always cheaper than stores.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
71,164
14,017
126
www.anyf.ca
People are done already? Jeez - I won't get all of my stuff till probably early March

Yeah same. I don't have much stuff myself but still have to wait for all of it to come in the mail and it's usually March by then. I could kind of use the money now! Spent a little too much on crypto mining hardware lol.
 

Thebobo

Lifer
Jun 19, 2006
18,574
7,672
136
Turbo-tax again this year. About $75 for Fed & State and don't have to re-enter all my info from last year.

Until I get more complicated investments this is working fine, and my time is worth $75 to not have to do everything by hand.

Ditto
 

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
40,730
670
126
TurboTax Premier for the last 5? years. I was using TaxCut but they had me overpay by $1,800 one year -- luckily the IRS caught their mistake and issued me a refund (thanks IRS!).

I have capital gains and dividends from funds and distributions from stock shares so my return is too complicated to do by hand, but it's still simple enough to do with software.
 

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
60,750
11,122
126
When I saw that two people voted for 'by hand', I knew the other was going to be you. I've used TurboTax in the past, but it's starting to piss me off. I probably spend as much time trying to figure out why their bullshit doesn't work as I would doing it by hand, so I'm going to try that this year. I have a pretty complicated return, so I'm not sure how well this will go.
My taxes are pretty easy, and I'll knock them out in <1hr, probably on a rain day at work.

Yeeears ago I used taxact fed+state. It wasn't so much the tax part, as carrying data over from previous years that made it nice. I haven't been on windows in years, and don't feel like playing games with software. Seems like recurring software gets more complex and prettier, but doesn't do its core job as well as it used to. Taxact might even suck now for all I know :shrugs: I'm ok with doing it by hand.
 

boomerang

Lifer
Jun 19, 2000
18,883
641
126
This will be my third year with TaxAct. Usually our taxes are really simple but in 2017 we sold our primary residence, our snowbird condo (we have to pay capital gains on that) and moved from one state to another. Having said that, it was fairly simple to figure all that out in TaxAct but I am waiting to file because I was prompted to wait until early February because there is evidently some kind of tax break coming because of Irma. It pretty much went right over the top of our newly built home. Our damage was very minimal so there may be nothing in store for us from a tax perspective. We'll wait a bit and see though.
 

Carson Dyle

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2012
8,173
524
126
My tax attorneys handle it. It's a good firm, been around 100+ years, so they know what they're doing.
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
27,399
3,948
126
my shit is too complicated. I have an accountant. Im issuing 1099s have 1099s and multiple w2s. Lots of writeoffs. Trump fucked me.