Of all the things I do on a yearly basis filing income tax is my least favorite! There are always face/palm moments. There are always periods of tension between Helaine and me when I’m glad we don’t keep a gun in the house. I did my best to put it off until today. We just finished.
“An hour and a half,” Helaine said with the kind of self congratulatory satisfaction only a wife can show to a husband. “Not bad.”
You know what? It wasn’t bad. It went smoothly with very few questions or concerns.
Here’s the secret of the Foxes finances: Helaine handles it all!
Seriously, she’s in charge of every penny. I’m not sure I wrote more than one or two checks all year. I certainly didn’t pay any bills or make any deposits.
This is all based on my history as a bachelor. Back then I was paying bills when I got around to it… which I seldom did.
We sat at the kitchen table. Helaine had already separated the results of the Fox family monetary policy into logical piles representing the various institutions that sent us forms. She also had a handwritten sheet with our charitable contributions.
We used TurboTax again this year. I have no idea if it’s better or worse than any other service, but once you’re ‘in the system’ most of your numbers are automatically entered for you. That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is. It’s part of the way they get you hooked!
I was pleased to see a brief admonition as I started. TurboTax recognized I was using Chrome Version 11 as my browser. They made note there might be minor incompatibilities, but added, “Way to be ahead of the curve.” Nice touch.
We’re getting some money back. That’s good though it’s really bad! Any accountant worth his salt will tell you I had too much deducted and lent the government money with no interest.
Too bad. I’d rather get a refund. It feels good whether it actually is or not.
Back when we started e-filing taxes friends were skeptical about the safety and security. I think it’s the norm now. Maybe we trust too much?
I have been using Turbo Tax for years because my husband is self employed… I like the GPS user style it has….I just wish my husband would stop giving me thousands of paper cash receipts! *sigh
I have been playing with expensify.com to remove the paper. Works with my iPhone and PC.
Taxes killed me this year. Stupid self-employment tax grrr
Still waiting for mine, problem with somebody’s student loan (not mine) had to file extra forms to get my money back
been using taxcut, simular to turbotax
Glad to see you’re using Chrome…what a great browser. Been using it two years now and haven’t turned back!
Turbo Tax is the best! Been using it for what seems like eons now, actually probably about 6 years. Once I started using it, I couldn’t believe I ever did it the old way. Used to take a week, week and a half doing bits after supper every night. Yelling at the family if they dared to bother me in the dining room with paperwork all over the place. I did mine last Sat. and for me, too, it took about an hour and a half, mostly because I didn’t have my husband’s W-2. I spent a lot of time looking for it, then realized he never went online to get it. We got a refund too, which I also prefer, even though it technically isn’t the best way to go. I give my daughter in Colorado Turbo Tax each Christmas. I hope you’ve got Stef using it too.
Working for the state guv’ment for the past 15 years has firmly entrenched me into the old fashioned way of doing it by paper.
It’s not that I don’t trust filing electronically (which is what both the state and the feds want you to do) but I find having a paper trail a comforting necessity. I’ve seen too much stuff happen when you don’t have a paper trail to back up whatever it is that you’re doing.
I did make one concession this year with my taxes, and that was to have both refunds done as a direct deposit.