doing taxes

Terry and I have had our taxes done by a CPA since 1995. I don’t recall exactly what triggered that, but I think at least part of it was being a bit gun-shy as both of us were guilty of under-withholding before we got married. As we started having company stock options and mortgage interest deductions, going that route became even more justified.

The CPA we used I knew personally since we had both previously attended the same church. That was nice. When he sold his practice as we were entering the new millennium we stayed with the fellow who bought it. It was a bit expensive, but it provided a level of emotional security.

Of course when one is laid off, one scrutinizes every expense. Given that last year’s return cost us $595, even though it was very straightforward with nothing out of the ordinary, I couldn’t justify the expense this year.

I looked at the tax software options that were available. Obviously, one first thinks of TurboTax. But they gave themselves a black eye. I’m not talking about the fraudulent state tax returns filed using the TurboTax online service. Rather I’m talking about the fact that from the 2013 to the 2014 tax year they removed a number of forms that were available in the Deluxe CD and download version and made them available only in the more expensive Premium version. In the end the outrage was so great that they had to make a full retreat. But that did not leave me with a good feeling. And in any case, I was never a big fan of Intuit, the publisher of TurboTax. I always thought that their Quicken personal financial management software was too annoying and cumbersome to use, with too many unnecessary bells and whistles. I thought they should have been provided a simplified and streamlined version.

Based on the comments on Amazon, as well as a conversation in the online alumni group from my former company, I went with the H&R Block Deluxe version. It had some very good reviews and it was considerably cheaper than TurboTax.

I downloaded the software from Amazon on President’s Day, a Monday, of course, and my traditional day for doing taxes. I spent the afternoon entering data, which was no more work than entering the information in the paper organizer for my CPA. I had Terry check my work on Tuesday morning and Tuesday afternoon I started the e-file process. I began working on that just as Terry was leaving to see the dentist. Before Terry got back from the dentist I had completed the process and received confirmation that my return had been accepted by both the IRS and the state.

I paid $29.99 for the software which included the state software as well and free e-file with the IRS. I paid $19.99 for my state e-file. That’s $49.98. Quite a difference from $595, hu?

Next year will be even easier since I have entered all of our data into the system and the software will import it for next year’s return.

How cool is that?