When I get ready to do my taxes each year, I don’t go to a tax accountant or download forms off the IRS website. Instead, I buy TurboTax and enjoy the pleasure of doing it myself with the ease of not entirely doing it myself.

TurboTax is one tax software package, but there are others. TaxCut is another notable tax software program.

So how is tax software different from going to a tax service? First of all, it’s a lot cheaper. Second of all, you have to do the typing rather than the tax preparer. Beyond that, there’s not a whole lot of difference.

You still need to have the relevant financial papers and information. At the tax service, the preparer will ask you questions, but with the software, you’ll read the questions on the screen instead.

Tax software has an audit checker to check for errors and also makes suggestions for tax deductions. It even suggests things you can do during the coming year to save more on your taxes next year. You can buy a state tax plug-in and very easily fill out your state taxes with the information you’ve already entered for your federal taxes.

But what if you get into trouble, or have questions while you’re filling out the interview? The tax software comes with help sections that will answer common questions, copies of many of the free IRS publications, other tax handbooks, and videos that explain various parts of the interview. If that doesn’t answer your questions, they also offer live tax advice over the internet.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 25th, 2007 at 9:44 pm and is filed under Tax Preparation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.