personal tax filing-yourself or delegate?

[uforgot]

I do mine and my two "adult" children. Spending part of the year in a combat zone is about as complicated as it gets. Then again, I teach math...

[Blueberry]

I have a CPA, she's totally worth it!

CA

[AnnieBikes]

I have used Turbo Tax for years and love it. The year we called the accountant to say we were doing it ourselves, he replied "I was wondering when you were going to do it yourself!" We got a refund this year.

[Irulan]

In Turbo Tax, the software made a $4000 error on our return that we had to have corrected and amended by an accounting professional. I don't trust at all. Maybe if we filed an EZ but not the way our returns look now...

[indysteel]

I used to do them by hand and now use Turbo Tax. If my tax situation was anymore complicated, e.g. I was in business for myself or was retired, I'd use an accountant. As it currently stands, I have a pretty clear understanding of what goes where and how much I can expect to get back each year.

[Cataboo]

Having had many friends that worked at the IMF & world bank... They're all pretty clear on the tax law - the foreign nationals don't pay taxes, and the US citizens do pay taxes - and the US citizens get paid more to compensate for the fact that they have to pay taxes, so that they're getting equal net pay as their colleagues. I don't see how this would be a surprise to Geitner while working there, because even I know all about how the US tax laws apply to IMF people... but maybe that's because everyone I know from there is an economist and likes to tell people in excruciating detail about monetary things.

Now, turbo tax may not have been set up completely for US citizens getting payments from international organizations, because it's a rare case... however, if I'm going through all my tax paperwork when I'm working with turbo tax, and there's a spare piece of paper that I haven't entered... I don't just neglect to enter it just because turbo tax didn't specifically ask me a question that made me think, okay let's put that in... I start using the help and the search features on the software to figure out where that is supposed to go... If that doesn't illuminate things for me, then I get on the IRS's website and read up on it. I also pay attention to the status bar telling me how much of a refund or how much I'm paying, and I think about what I'm entering to make sure everything makes sense...

There are sometimes when I start down a question path in turbo tax, then realize, oh, this doesn't apply, and then cancel it and later figure out that turbo tax didn't actually delete that form, and I've got to go through and do it manually or all the tax calculations are screwed up... But I've caught it doing that several times.

I think when using turbo tax, you've got to be fairly vigilant about what you're doign, but you should be doing that anyways because you're doing taxes.

[VeloVT]

I would point out that the IRS website is, surprisingly, excellent, informative and user-friendly.

That said, I send my docs to my parents' accountant .

[shootingstar]

Having had many friends that worked at the IMF & world bank... They're all pretty clear on the tax law - the foreign nationals don't pay taxes, and the US citizens do pay taxes - and the US citizens get paid more to compensate for the fact that they have to pay taxes, so that they're getting equal net pay as their colleagues. I don't see how this would be a surprise to Geitner while working there, because even I know all about how the US tax laws apply to IMF people... but maybe that's because everyone I know from there is an economist and likes to tell people in excruciating detail about monetary things.

Now, turbo tax may not have been set up completely for US citizens getting payments from international organizations, because it's a rare case... however, if I'm going through all my tax paperwork when I'm working with turbo tax, and there's a spare piece of paper that I haven't entered... I don't just neglect to enter it just because turbo tax didn't specifically ask me a question that made me think, okay let's put that in... I start using the help and the search features on the software to figure out where that is supposed to go... If that doesn't illuminate things for me, then I get on the IRS's website and read up on it. I also pay attention to the status bar telling me how much of a refund or how much I'm paying, and I think about what I'm entering to make sure everything makes sense...

There are sometimes when I start down a question path in turbo tax, then realize, oh, this doesn't apply, and then cancel it and later figure out that turbo tax didn't actually delete that form, and I've got to go through and do it manually or all the tax calculations are screwed up... But I've caught it doing that several times.

I think when using turbo tax, you've got to be fairly vigilant about what you're doign, but you should be doing that anyways because you're doing taxes.

Catriona you're not an accountant, but maybe you're a bit addicted to this tax filing stuff or you really do get treated well to dinners by others...take it as a compliment.