So this year’s taxes are going to be a bit different than last years. Last year I had 2 sources of income with w-2s… this year I have 4 as well as being a 1099 personal contractor which supposedly entails further confusion and madness from the US Tax code.
My sister decided to take her taxes to H&R block and they took care of her taxes for $71. My mom gave me a $25 coupon for them if I decide to go there, but I don’t know if I should do it myself or just take it to them for the ease of it all.
If you have 1099 income, with the normal attendant expenses, then don’t do them yourself. Don’t go to H&R either. Find a decent Enrolled Agent (E.A.) or CPA.
They have usually one real Tax expert per offcie- the rest are all housewifes and such hired as temps.
They are scum Usurers.
A real expert will find quite a bit of expenses to offset your 1099 income- and since you have no taxes withheld on that income and will also owe Self-Employments taxes- you’ll need them.
After struggling for years doing them myself, swearing and muttering and grumbling about the stupidity of IRS forms, three years ago I got TaxAct. This is a fantastic program, and it almost makes it fun.
It pulls in last year’s form, lets you change what you want and prints out the forms in perfect order. It remembers the investments losses from previous years and calculaltes it all, it figures out the idiotic Social Security earnings form in a nano-second (used to take me 15 minutes just to do this), and e-files if you want.
For only $20, you get the federal return, the state return and a free e-file to the feds. A state e-file is extra.
Recently Consumer Reports did a report on that, on H&R Block and on TurboTax, which it rated best I believe, although they said TaxAct was fine if you don’t have too many complications, and was least expensive.
I have friends who use TurboTax and swear by it (rather than at it), so I think either would be great.
You can do them online, but for security’s sake, I feel more comfortable doing it on my own computer. Once I have all the forms together, it does not take me more thanan hour to do the whole thing. With paper, pencil, calculator and aspirin, it used to take 3-4 hours minimum.
I used Taxcut online and we itemize. Very easy. Time consuming, yes, but easy none-the-less. I have no qualms about entering my personal information on their website. This is the second year I’ve done it through the website, previously I’d buy the CD’s. I like online filing better. Take the stack of docs, separate them into piles and start entering. Easy. It double checks everything so all will be in sync and gives advice on how to lower your tax liabilities. I give away (donate) LOTS of stuff throughout the year and this year I finally bit the bullet and admitted that it was worth more than $500. That’s an additional form. But no additional troubles for me…it just zaps the additional form on to the IRS. Again, easy!
And quick refunds with e-File. Yee-haw, $4k in less than 2 weeks!
Yep, my close friends have outside income, a home-based business, house, cars, three kids in college, etc., and they have no problem with TurboTax.
Without getting specific of course, what type of service do your provide, because as mentioned you could offset self-employment tax with claimable expenses like mileage, supplies, etc.
If you are self-employed, after a couple years of getting your taxes done by a Pro- then you should be able to do them with Turbo-tax, or whatever. But until you know what expenses to claim, Turbo-tax will just give you a mathematically correct wrong answer- and one that’s likely too high.
I went with the free TurboTax link off of IRS.gov. Though it wasn’t actually free. I also had it do my state returns and there was a $20 preparation fee for the State filing, so it cost me $20. I decided I just couldn’t afford a CPA or anything, next year if I’m making the big bucks I’ll go with it.