Stressed out about taxes

[lovesfortune]

Anyone else do their own taxes? I used to do them for myself way back when I was single and didn't have much. Then I got married, bought a house, had kids, etc. and it got complicated.

This year since we are trying to save money, instead of paying $150+ to have someone do it, I thought I would do it. I am using Turbo Tax. It was going alright, but then the site went down yesterday when I was almost finished. I am trying to get it done today but it's overwhelming at times. It doesn't help that hubby is the king of throwing things away. I keep calling my brother in law - who is great at taxes - and he just keeps confusing me.


I'm just stressed. :(

[WashingtonBay]

We always do it on TurboTax. Not online, my dad usually buys a copy. It's a bit involved, but if you follow it through the steps they make it fairly simple, unless you have some reason for it to be complicated.

[westmanfarrier]

Use Turbo Tax's help feature a lot. It is quite helpful.

I've used Turbo Tax for more than 10 years.

[lovesfortune]

thanks guys. i FINALLY got it figured out. I think I was just being confused by my BIL when he was trying to be helpful - but he has a lot of deductions and when he would start talking about his I would get confused about ours.

WHOOO hooo!! I just e-filed. Yay. :)

Turbo tax is very helpful though for someone like me. :)

[Apaches Mom]

And if you go through the IRS website, certain people can efile for free. There's plenty of different online vendors offering it (Turbo tax, taxact, ect) but you just have to start at the IRS site and follow their link.

Glad you got it figured out though.

[Miracle Whip]

My mom volunteers for a service that does taxes for the poor. Alot of their clients are not that "poor" though. They don't care what you make. They will file it for free and they do have to take classes each year. I only let my mom do my taxes though because someone else that she recommended actually goofed up our taxes...and mom filed the correction.

I have a brother in law who is a CPA but I don't want him to know what I make.

We made $14,000 LESS in 2008 than we did a year or 2 ago!!!!!!!

[HaveFaith]

I've used Turbo Tax for 8 or so years and never had a problem. I get the CD's though.

[Equine_Woman]

Well I'm stressed out about taxes too. This is the first year we earned too much to get teh E.I.C. so we won't be getting much back at all!! (I'm used to getting THOUSANDS! lol). So I'm having a hard time deciding if I want to go to HR Block and risk having to pay them out of pocket cause I have no money coming back or trying turbo tax and figuring out how to deduct all our goat feed and stuff. Is it easy to do deductions on turbo tax?

[vicklynn]

Well, lets talk stressed. We use turbo tax, and its great(hubby is the tax person here).
Thing is, due to his occupation, we OWE LOTS yearly.....so, if you want to trade stresses, feel free to pay ours for us...we wouldnt mind...LMBO

[Miracle Whip]

Deductions is generally just an itemized list. The only thing you are figuring out is whether or not your itemized deductions are more than the standard deduction. Do you sell your goats? I have seen a number of goat herds on here but I thought they were just hobbies. If I had goats could I buy a tractor and deduct it?

[JackieB]

Glad you filed. We use a tax preparer even though ours are simple enough some years that we really could do them ourselves. The reason why we use the tax preparer is that even though we have to spend $175 or so to have our taxes done, he finds deductions that we might not know about.

[Equine_Woman]

Well, lets talk stressed. We use turbo tax, and its great(hubby is the tax person here).
Thing is, due to his occupation, we OWE LOTS yearly.....so, if you want to trade stresses, feel free to pay ours for us...we wouldnt mind...LMBO

Lol, no thank you!!!! EEEK! I wouldn't make it!!!

[Equine_Woman]

Deductions is generally just an itemized list. The only thing you are figuring out is whether or not your itemized deductions are more than the standard deduction. Do you sell your goats? I have seen a number of goat herds on here but I thought they were just hobbies. If I had goats could I buy a tractor and deduct it?

Depends on if you have an ag exemption on your land I believe. And how much the goat business depended on the tractor. If you wanted to clear your land to plant hay I'm sure you could. . . cause hay is an ag product. . .but I wouldn't do any of it without talking to a real tax advisor obviously. We keep enough goats to have an Ag exemption so their feed and hay are deductions.

[lovesfortune]

I don't know about doing ag stuff on turbo tax. my inlaws have all the farm land, but they always take them in to do it somewhere because it's complicated because they rent out the land, etc. but i do know they deduct for cow feed, etc.

you could try turbo tax and see if it does it, you don't have to pay until you file.. and if it's too complicated you can just stop and make an appt at somewhere else.

[vicklynn]

Lol, no thank you!!!! EEEK! I wouldn't make it!!!
Awww come on, you know you can....lol

[westmanfarrier]

If you get thousands back, that just means you gave the government an interest free loan when you could just figure out how to break even and put those extra thousands in the bank for yourself and earn interest.

[JennyandJosey]

If you get thousands back, that just means you gave the government an interest free loan when you could just figure out how to break even and put those extra thousands in the bank for yourself and earn interest.

Agreed...the goal should be to break even. Although, when you're talking about the EIC that rule really doesn't apply. We got that credit years back for a few years in a row and a lot of people who get it aren't really paying income taxes in the first place and probably don't itemize. So there isn't always a way to adjust your withholdings. I've done taxes for myself and others for years now and I love Turbo Tax.

[Miracle Whip]

Don't have any extra ground for hay, and the equipment to bale hay is not cheap. I doubt I'd have the patience for goats actually - all that crawling around, noise, and getting into things...I have not heard of an ag exemption either. All I know is it takes 30 acres in Linn county to be agricultural and I don't have 30 acres. More livestock just is not in the cards...enough work taking care of 2 horses.

[outriding01]

My mommy does my taxes :innocent:

[Equine_Woman]

I did it I did it I did it!! Whew!! E - filed today!! Turbo Tax was fantastic!!!! I will certainly be using that every year instead of paying H.R. Block!!

And as far as getting a refund we barely make it pay check to pay check so if they gave us our money at the time we earned it, we'd never save it, and it sure is nice to get a big ol chunk of it at once to pay for all our vet bills!! Seems less painful that way. Considering all our animals routine vet bill is around $1500 a year. They are certainly worth it!

[Equine_Woman]

Don't have any extra ground for hay, and the equipment to bale hay is not cheap. I doubt I'd have the patience for goats actually - all that crawling around, noise, and getting into things...I have not heard of an ag exemption either. All I know is it takes 30 acres in Linn county to be agricultural and I don't have 30 acres. More livestock just is not in the cards...enough work taking care of 2 horses.

That stinks!! I don't think we have a land requirement here. We do have an animal amount per acre that we have to maintain, but that's it. Ag Exemptions are pretty big around here.

[vicklynn]

EW, see, you can help pay ours;)...lol
Glad you get some help with the vet bills. I know that is a relief.

[Steelhorserider]

I use Turbo Tax or the H and R Block on disk...I tried the online version last year and it sucked!!!

[42many]

If you buy a tractor as part of a "business expense", make SURE that you are actually running that business as a for-profit deal. It is very important that you make a profit periodically in your business or it will likely be deemed a hobby - not good for tax deduction purposes.