Do your return online or with tax preparation software. There are a great many taxpayers who qualify for free filing of their FEDERAL tax return. http://www.irs.gov Click on “free file”.

Using a tax prep website or tax prep software will NOT guarantee an accurate return, but you don’t have to worry about arithmetic errors or mailing a paper return or wondering if IRS received your return.

File electronically if you can. You receive a Declaration Control Number (DCN) that IRS has received your return and the numbers that you submitted are what IRS gets. If you mail a paper return, someone has to enter your data into a computer which allows the possibility of a keystroke error.

If you’re getting a refund, direct deposit it in your savings or checking account. It’s faster than a paper check and it’s safer.

If you work your return and you’re still unsure if you’ve done it properly, H&R Block has a “Second Look” program and will look over your return for a $29 fee. If they agree with your numbers they will give you their guarantee. If they disagree with your numbers you can have them prepare the return, or go back to the drawing board.

Alicia (#24): CompleteTax
Kate (#39): TaxCut
La BellaDonna (#86): CompleteTax
David (#90): TaxCut
Lynetta (#116): CompleteTax
SH (#127): TaxCut
Sharon (#149): CompleteTax

I’ll contact each of them by e-mail to arrange delivery of their prize.

I am doing my own taxes for the first time so this post came in handy.

Turbo Tax wants to charge about seventy dollars to file. Tax Act $17. Tax Cut is in the same price range as Turbo Tax, although I think it is slightly cheaper.

Another thing I like about Tax Act is if you are a student it will prepare your FASA for you as well.

You wrote, “I am interested in both CCH CompleteTax, and H&R TaxCut.

A question: Has anyone tried entering their taxes in different on-line tax websites and compared the outcome? I know the H&R site doesn’t require payment until you are ready to submit via e-file, but do other sites have that same policy?
Thanks, Steve”

Thank you

–R

I second Tax Act. Tax Act doesn’t charge to file your federal taxes and the most it charges for a State return is $16.95. This year I used both Turbo Tax and Tax Act to prepare my taxes to see what the differences were. For some reason, I am getting twenty three dollars more back from Tax Act (so I will file using that). I used it last year, and it works just as good as Turbo Tax, for about fifty dollars less.

I tried Tax Cut a couple of years ago. Again, it is priced much higher then Tax Act, and on a Mac, which it claimed to support, it worked like crap. Strange since I was using the online version.

I have to agree with one of the previous posters. TaxCut automatically rounds by default. I’d imagine that there’s probably some setting that you can change to alter this behavior. Most of the tax software that I have used rounds off the cents, and I have yet to be audited, but I have super easy taxes (I only use software because it’s a little faster, and I’m lazy).

Edit: I guess I should enter this: I’m interested in CCH CompleteTax or TaxCut

Another tip is keeping using the same kind of software package released by the same company. One nice thing is this year’s package is able to import seamlessly last year’s tax forms which already contain such information as personal identification and employment, which definitely saves you time of retyping and avoids data input errors. Keep in mind after filing your tax returns don’t forget to burn CDs of digital tax forms while keeping paper copies, which is for your record as well as next year’s tax return.