At the end of the year, after all the holidays are gone and you have spent your money until there is none left, not even in the cookie jar! You find yourself wondering how you are going to get any relief from all the big credit card bills that you know will still come in. And then you may find yourself thinking about years to come and how will you ever make it through another Holiday Season. You may even be thinking about your plans, your goals, you’re vacation and all the wonderful things you would like to be able to do, even one day be able to retire. But with things the way they are now, you really don’t see that happening at all.
Then out of nowhere comes that bad little thought, “OH NO! I HAVE TO FILE MY TAXES AGAIN!”
”But wait!” you tell yourself, “Uncle Sam may owe me some money this year!” And a knew wonderful hope arises inside and you get a feeling of possible relief. But then you think “Oh NO, what if I owe Uncle Sam?” And all of those form, how you hate to fill out forms. What is one to do? File of course. DUH! And below is an easy way to do. And NO paper forms! A trust worthy site, even recommended by the IRS! (Yes, they do actually offer something nice once and a while, I know, I find that hard to believe as well.)
For three years now I used Turbo Tax on the web. Their site is wonderful! It is easy to get around. The help section is wonderful. On each page is an area that you can request help. They have links that are highlighted along the way should you have a question in the particular area in which you are working. And they explain everything to you right there on the page you are currently working on. It only takes about an hour. At first I have to admit it took me longer because when I first used Turbo Tax, I was doing so divorced. So, I had to learn how. And I did with this program. I really enjoyed the ease of use. And I felt very comfortable with Turbo Tax. Now my husband and I file every year with Turbo Tax.
All you do is put in ALL your information, the W2’s, dependent information, childcare (if you have it) mortgage interest (if you have it) contributions (if you have those too) and any thing else that may help you out. They calculate everything for you. Works just like the paper forms but better. No more pencils or erasers and no more whiteout! No more making copies at a copier machine, which you have to find and then pay for usage. You can go to the site and print right off. Of course I save to a disk for future reference if needed.
Turbo tax informs you of where your mistakes are at and you have a chance to fix them. They also let you know of where there may be some more money for you. Of course, they will also let you know that some things won’t work for you. They remind you of everything, even something you may have missed adding and possible audits areas.
You can file electronically. Of course this is the idea in the first place. They will let you know if the IRS site has accepted your tax form. If not believe me they will let you know this as well. In which case you can make the changes needed and for the same price. NO extra charges.
The Turbo Tax Web is the best thing in the world as far as I am concerned for doing your taxes. This year we were able to completely do all of our taxes electronically including signature. We did that by setting up a pin number in which we had to verify 2000's tax information. And then we were set. We received a special number and password that we will use year after year.
The price this year was 19.95 with the option to take the amount from the refund. Also we were able to set up with the bank that Turbo uses in order for that bank to take the charge from the refund. This was a cost of an extra 10.00 and a 10-day waiting period to get our refund. So, for 30.00 we filed our taxes, got our refund and saved a lot of money by waiting 10 days. Some people like that rapid refund thingy and that's okay to. But for us, we choose to save that charge for rapid refunds. (In the past I have paid 9.95 for the service, but I suppose due to the recession the price is more this year. The price is US dollars.)
You do have to pay them before you get the final printable version. Which is only fair.
Remember to still keep all your information in a file folder so that you have it to refer to as needed. Remember to keep your copy of your W2 form or forms. Remember to keep all receipts for childcare, gas, and tolls, things along those lines. Important things.
They also offer, for a fee, live help. I didn’t use this service but I did look at them and the prices did vary from company to company. You can pay a flat fee for just one call or you can pay by the minute.
There are other online tax services available I am sure which are probably good. I really couldn’t tell you because I trust Turbo Tax. I highly recommend them. Oh yeah the web address is:
http://www.turbotax.com
So instead of worrying about doing your taxes, just go to Turbo Tax for the Web and take some of the heat off of doing the paper forms. You can go back as often as you want to until October and print as many copies as you want. But, if you have saved to a disk this would not be necessary at all.
I hope that this has helped in some kind of way.
God Bless!
©LKD 2002
- Thank You! We appreciate your effort.
