I get some income from two family trusts, which means a bunch of confusing forms (along with all the other confusing forms), so I don’t do our taxes anymore. Our days of filing a 1040EZ are long gone.
We have a tax guy who does it for about $200. Yes, you read that correctly. Even if I understood how to do all the forms we need, I don’t have the time or energy to do it. This year was particularly confusing- sold a house, bought a house, had another kid, had deductible childcare expenses, drove a company-owned car, got a trust fund disbursement, etc. Way too much to handle on my own.
I think I mailed the packets about 2 weeks ago. I would have done it sooner, but I rarely get all the forms from the trust tax person until April (yes, I know that’s illegal, but there you are). We are getting a refund this year, so I wish I had been able to mail them in sooner!
Simple procrastination. We put it off in February, thought about it again at the beginning of March, said, eh, we’ve got time, forgot about it, remembered a couple of weeks later when we had a bunch of other stuff to do, forgot again, and then finally took care of it the weekend before the deadline. Because my wife is a grad student with highly variable employment status and income, we never really know what the outcome will be.
Our method: I whomp up a simple spreadsheet, add this line to that line, multiply by number of deductions, etc., and then we just start plugging in numbers.
I filed on Monday. Somehow, I wasn’t feeling the urgency of getting my $37.14 back from the feds and the Illinois government. I filled out the 1040EZ. It took me about five minutes.
I always do my taxes myself. The one time my mom tried to do them, she came up with me owing 74 dollars. I love my mom; she just isn’t allowed near my taxes.
Did mine on-line, via TurboTax’s Freedom Project: since I don’t make very much, and have a very uncomplicated return, it’s free for people like me. I started mine up in January, but didn’t actually file until later (early April), because I wanted to make sure that no ‘little surprises’ would pop up. (That, and I owed a whole whopping $35 to the Fed’s. The state I’m in doesn’t have income tax.)
I do mine myself, always, because there isn’t that much to do. Why bother paying someone to do something that takes five mintues, tops?
(I did get a kick out of the time I filed while I was living in California… got back $1.25 from the Feds, and owed $1.00 to California! :rolleyes: )
April 14th, I used TaxAct. I waited because I’m a procrastinator, except I did file earlier this year than most. But I think that’s because I’m getting a refund for the first time in a few years. I used the mail, so I expect to get my check sometime around November or so.
Since we got a refund, we filed the day I got my W-2–like February 1. TurboTax, which is awesome; and e-filing, with direct deposit. Money magically in my account by Feb 10.
(And despite what Mallard Fillmore may think, getting a refund is very cool.)
Well, seeing as I am a college student who knows nothing about this sort of stuff, I sent it off to business major dad. Of course, what does he do? Gives our taxes to an acocuntant to do. Sheesh. Anyways, mine were a little trickey because I worked in NY, but am a resident of VT still. But luckily NY hasa nice “non-resident” tax form to fill out. I mailed them out sometime last week, not right at the very last second, but not early by any means either. And, since I’m a college student, I’m getting most of it back. And let me tell you, I’m right at that time wher a good cash infusion helps me a lot.
For some reason I prefer to do mine by hand, on paper, with a pencil. Like FairyChatMom said she did, I mail them in. The stamp is a lot less than an on-line filing fee. I did them about three weeks ago. Have my state refund already, the Feds will wait for as long as possible to send my money.
1040NR, by hand, complete with form 8840 to explain to the IRS that even though I live in the U.S. I file as a non-resident because the IRS told me to. 'Cause you know they have to make sure that I’m not just some sneaky resident who should file as a resident but is actually filing as a non-resident because, I don’t know, I don’t want the standard deduction or the nicer “married filing jointly” rate or something. And if you understood all of that, you’re doing better than I am.
I filed mine electronically using H&R Block and since I’m poor it didn’t cost me anything. I’ll never forget doing my taxes this year. It was Feb. 1st and as I was in the middle of doing them, they announced that the space shuttle Columbia had broken up. I got back more than I expected, which was nice.
Early morning (around 2am) April 15, via Tax Act -
which I will never use again, as they have for some unknown reason “fixed” their software so it no longer works with my state.
I used TurboTax (as I have for the last 5 or so years). I mailed them at the end of March (the day after my last documentation arrived).
I didn’t do the electronic filing since I didn’t have time to read about it. Last I read, it cost money to file electronically - but I guess that isn’t the case. But I did sign up for the IRS’s electronic federal tax payment system, www.EFTPS.gov
RTFirefly, can you link to some information about Maryland’s free electronic filing?
In years past we prepared our own taxes and filed early. But we bought a house this year and felt a little nervous about doing it ourselves. So we went to H&R Block. My husband retired from the Navy this year and that, added to the move, meant we had a tough time getting all our W-2s together – so we filed pretty late – April 13, in fact. I watched as she filled it out, though and will do it myself next year.
Quite a rude awakening, though. I knew we’d end up paying extra because we made much more money this year than last, what with his retirement pay and his new job… but yikes! We had to write a check for $4150 for federal and $1145 for state! What really pissed me off, though was the penalty for not withholding enough – $98 federal and $32 state! Fuck that! So long as I pay the damn taxes on time, how much we withhold ought to be our business!
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Jess, I agree that getting hit with penalties sucks but we have a “pay as you earn” tax system. If the gov’ment allowed us all to pay on time and withhold as much as we want during the year, we would all withhold $0 and pay the full amount due on April 15th. The working capital management would be difficult at best and we know how well the gov’ment can control money. Also, there would be alot of people who wouldn’t be able to pay on April 15th since they would have spent it all.
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The past several years our taxes have been done by Deloitte Touche and paid for by my company. So I’d kind of gotten out of practice. Plus this year, when I saw how little Federal tax had been taken out of my pay, I was certain I was going to be doing what Jess had done: writing a BIG check to the government.
Then, a few weeks ago, before going overseas I broke down and took a first cut at the taxes. Much to my surprise, we didn’t owe anything. In fact, it looked like the g-men were going to owe us a couple of hundred dollars. Then this past weekend Mrs. ShibbOleth went through, found a couple of missed dollars in deductions, and redid the final draft of the taxes. Net, the Feds owe us about $375 and the State owes us about $450. I still can’t believe how LITTLE we paid in taxes this year. Our Federal taxes were just over $5,000 on just under $100,000 of income. Somehow that doesn’t seem fair, like we’re cheating someone, although we were only following orders. Granted, we have a lot of deductions and I sheltered a good portion of our income by putting it into pretax retirement accounts.
This year (2003) should be ugly. We’ll make a lot more money and have a lot less ability to shelter it. I expect to pay about 5 or 6X in taxes next year. That should assuage my guilt.
Oh, and it was done on paper by hand this year and mailed in during the late afternoon of April 15.
I see a number of people already posted that they do taxes the same way as I do:
1.) After I get all the relevant documents (Usually early February), do a preliminary estimate as to which tax forms I owe money on, and which I am due money back.
2.) If I am due a refund, calculate my taxes fully by myself by hand, since my tax situation isn’t too complex. If I owe taxes on both forms (state and federal) put off this step till March or early April.
3.) Send out the tax form(s) were I am due a refund (this year, the state), and hold on to the form(s) (if any) were I owe money.
4.) Finally, a week previous to filing deadline, send out the tax form(s) I owe money on.
I usually aim to owe some money (less than the penalty limit), as I realize it’s better for me for the money to reside in my bank account as opposed to the Government’s treasury.
I got back more than I expected, which was nice.