My mom’s friend has one of the out of the box software programs so she did our federal and state taxes, got us a great refund and didn’t charge us because she said it was easy. We did direct deposit for the refund and got it two weeks ago. I did our local taxes by hand and sent checks for what we owed.
Because I’m single with no kids, my taxes are relatively easy, so I still do 'em myself. I’m a homeowner, so I itemize. And I work in another state, so I have to file in two states. But, still.
I used the free, fill-in forms online for the IRS and for Illinois, which were quite easy and they paid Adobe so I could save my forms on my own computer. Missouri, however, has fill-in forms that cannot be saved, which was a real PITA – even though they did do the calculations (not too helpful, because of course I did the math, myself, to check).
I didn’t e-file, though; if they want to audit me, a human is welcome to do so, but I’m not so keen on having my return dumped into a computer to be autoflagged.
CD version of Turbo Tax, followed with intensive review of paper copies, before e-filing.
Like a fool, I also did Dweezil’s tax return the same way (he has enough income from an UTMA that we have to pay a little Federal tax for him). “Fool”, because only after I paid Intuit the 16 dollar e-filing fee did I realize that I probably could have done that one via one of the online apps, for free :smack:
I used Tax Cut this year for the same reason I’ve used Tax Act in the past: it was free.
Turbotax online. I got the fed version free. I don’t have an incredibly complicated return (mortgage interest, charitable contributions, some cap gains and div income), and it was really easy.
Just finished my annual Turbo-Tax session. I have a really simple return, just a single W-2 and one 1099, so it took me about 25 minutes. Quick, but not painless–I owe over a grand this year.
CPA. My tax situation is complex, to say the least, and involves too many other people and entities for me do them myself.
Turbo Tax CD for federal. Same way I have been doing them for the last decade or so. State taxes and school district taxes were done via Ohio’s online tax site. Including allowing me to save a PDF of my returns there. City taxes OTOH, were done by hand on a paper form I had to mail in. 
And they had the absolutely worst instructions I have ever seen.
By hand. I’m single and have a pretty simple financial structure (although I own my home so I do itemize). One or two forms I’ll do as “fill in the blank” PDFs directly from the IRS and CA websites.
Takes maybe an hour tops, and that includes running back and forth finding obscure bits of paper with vehicle license fees or whatever.
I read that the “average” person takes 28 hours to do their taxes. I cannot fathom how anyone short of Bill Gates would have such a complicated financial situation that it takes that long.
For a 1040-EZ, it seems ridiculous to use anything but a pen and a calculator. I showed my brother how to do it the same way, despite the fact that we were at my parents’ house and they had TurboTax. I submitted my state taxes online and my federal taxes by post.
ETA: Oh, and it took me about 20 minutes to do both state and federal taxes.
Turbotax.com – I really like their deduction tools. I was eligible for several things based on my status as a student and so on, but I wouldn’t have known how to “figure them in” without their software.
I didn’t, they did me. Hard.
I have used TaxAct.com for about 5 years, the last two years I used it for State and Federal. I recommend it to everyone I know. I believe it’s free to everyone for the Federal taxes and pretty cheap to upgrade to include State.
It’s easy to us and seems to catch a lot of things I might miss. It told me about the long distance credit and I had never heard of it before. For 19.95 I get one free federal e-file and the State prtion.
I e-filed both this year because my husband wasn’t home to sign the forms. Usually I mail the State because I object to paying for something that makes things easier for them.
On paper. The only funky thing I had is student loan interest and that’s not difficult. I owed this year, so I just mailed off a check yesterday. Next year, I will have mortgage interest to deduct but I will probably still do it myself.
TurboTax Premier, out of the box. Their connection with It’s Deductible was a big help in tracking our charitable donations. Also, *Basis Pro * allowed us to find the cost basis of some stock we’ve bought over the years (as options) and sold in December.
I did mine on paper using the 1040EZ. This past year, I didn’t have anything complicated. However, next year I’m going to have to figure out how my changing circumstances are going to affect my taxes. (Becoming a grad student, being financially independent, moving across the state, getting a new job, etc.)
Me - I went to Jackson-Hewitt. Saw the same guy I see every year - this year he asked me for a recipe for Springerle cookies (he asks for recipes - it’s a long story) and I had my refund the next day.
Kid2U - I used some kind of free on line software - I don’t remember what it was called. He got his refund in about two weeks.
This is Kid2U’s first year filing taxes - he is not at all thrilled about this “grown up” stuff. 
Paper form 1040A for federal (standard deductions) on 4/16 as I had to cough up almost $4,000 that had not been withheld of the nearly $16,000 tax obligation. Because the state tax is based on the fed tax that went in on paper too as I’m getting $300 refund from that.
TurboTax Deluxe from the box. We had a complicated one this year, with a big charitable donation and multiple stock sales, my wife’s business, and money I made on the side from NSF. Luckily we keep good records. (By we I mean my wife.) The best thing about TurboTax is the automatic calculation of the maximum SEP for her.
We did one daughter’s too. She earned money in California and Maryland. California taxes income from anywhere, but the income from Maryland was below the limit. Forget boxed software, hurray for state tax agency websites. Pre-web figuring this out would have taken weeks.
State tax calculation time: 0. For us we clicked start state return and it was ready for review - and it looked right.
The thing that bugs me about TurboTax is that they try to sell you more stuff all the time, and that the interview changes every year. Last year calculating the SEP required fiddling with a form, this year it did it fine by itself.
28 hours seems a little long. But I probably spend about 20 hours total. But I will say this you are not someone who has sold employee stock options or employee stock purchase plan shares. For reasons I do not understand, and which I bitch about every year, my brokerage and employer cannot tell me the cost basis for the stock I sell. They can tell me some other numbers which don’t seem to be useful except for determining the cost basis but they don’t tell me the cost basis. My employer to determine how much income to report has to know the cost basis. Why don’t they tell me what it is. It is madding and a big pain in the butt every year to determine the real number.
I used Turbo tax like every year for the past few years.