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What Tax Software Do You Use?
r_jensen11 asks: "I know this topic has been asked at least once before, but seeing as how 6 years have passed, I figured the question is due again. It's about that time of the year again when we find out how much we owe Uncle Sam (or as in my case, how much Uncle Sam owes me). Software has changed drastically in the past 6 years, since the previous query I found on Slashdot, as well as many tax rules. Does anyone here use tax software other than TurboTax and TaxCut? I know that there are also online forms I can fill out, but which ones are accessible to people that use OSes other than Windows and Mac OS X? I'd preferably use a program that I can use off-line and store my information locally instead of using eforms, but if I have to resort to eforms, which ones should I investigate and which ones should I stay far away from?"
Have an accountant do your taxes. They're cross platform, less error prone, and in many cases charge about the same price as popular tax prep software costs.
Print the forms, get a calculator, and do the math....whats the problem?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
As I recall it worked equally well with Firefox as IE last year. We've used it every year for the past 4 years or more. I'm not sure what a standalone program might do for us over the online offering. My returns are simple, but my wife has to deal with Schedule C, and investment stuff, it's served us well, as far as I can tell.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
taxact.com
already done and efiled - no charge if you go directly to their site. DO NOT visit the IRS site first or you will pick up a cookie which will make them try to charge you for efiling if your AGI is above $52k regardless of how you actually enter the taxact site later.
Google Excel 1040. It works for me. I blew off Intuit after their activation debacle. That and the fact that Office Despot consistently has lower prices for Intuit's products than Intuit's website. After Intuit, H&R Block's product seemed ok.
Over two thirds of tax payers can file online for free. The IRS runs Free File, which helps you to select a service to file through.
Most of these were browser and OS agnostic last year & a good choice for those with AGIs low enough.
Oh yea, I definately don't use turbotax software. But the online turbotax is really one of the best out there. Used it for the last few years. Lucky for me my wife got a job at a CPA firm last year, with a nice perk of free taxes... Hmm her boss gets to know EXACTLY how much she is underpaid.. :)
Unconstitutional? There's a Constitutional amendment, the sixteenth, that explicitly authorizes income taxes, ratified in 1913. To quote:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Now, as most of our rights are guaranteed by amendments to the Constitution (like the right to keep and bear arms), and as most of the time when laws are struck down it is because the violate the terms of the amendments and not of the original articles (particularly those pesky first ten amendments), I think you're going to have a hard time arguing against the validity of the sixteenth amendment.
By the way, by definition, amendments have priority over the text of the articles - after all, they are *amendments*. Any discrepancy between an amendment and the articles must be resolved in favor of the amendment.
That Uncle Sam returning that nice interest free loan you have given them by over witholding is "Giving you money back". Biggest fallacy in the book ...
The biggest fallacy in the book is that fiat currency has an intrinsic value. Look up Alan Greenspan's little essay on the gold standard, and realize that you are not free without a secure store of value. The withholdings are a time consuming but insignificant part of the bigger scam.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This is part of a negotiated settlement between the IRS and for-profit tax preparation companies during the Clinton years. It, after all, makes more sense for the IRS to offer free software for the public to encourage everyone to file electronically and standardize everything, etc. More efficent for the IRS, and therefore you. But that would hurt some big companies (I'm sure you can intuit whom I mean). Thus a deal was struck a while back, which as far as I know is not promoted/advertised by the tax-prep software companies.
The result is that people who make less than a certain amount (Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) of $52,000 or less) are entitled to free software by the "Free File Alliance, LLC" (ie, the tax software industry). During the Bush administration, the # of people who has qualified for this has gone down every year...
The government believes that private industry, given its established expertise and experience in the field of electronic tax preparation, has a proven track record in providing the best technology and services available. In addition, the government believes a partnership with private industry will: provide taxpayers with higher quality services by using the existing expertise of the private sector; maximize consumer choice; promote competition within the marketplace; and meet objectives in the least costly manner to taxpayers.
FYI.
Yes. It used to be not compatible.
Now there is a standard tax file format that a lot of software is implementing.
Quicken and other packages also import this. TurboTax will ask you if you want to import from Quicken. Just say "yes" and then choose .TXF format when it asks you. Smooth sailing from there.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Mohandas Gandhi
You could live in a country that will supply you with free (not Free) software downloadable from the Tax Office website, which walks you through the whole process, step by step, asking reasonably easy questions with decent, context sensitive online help to boot.
Then after establishing your bona-fides with them using details from a previous tax cheque/bill that was mailed to you, it all gets submitted online to them, with the option of a direct transfer into a bank account of your choice once it's been processed.
Beats the hell out of paper or the $70-$100 that tax people charge these days for a basic return.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Yes, because of course it is an entirely rational argument to claim that differences in punctuation invalidate a ratification (they don't), or that Ohio didn't become a state until 1953.