Taxes beyond the 1040 - do them yourself?

[tzolkin]

Anyone have any experience with moving and doing your taxes?

I have always just done ours myself (even used to do my parents in HS/college to make sure my FAFSA got done), but this year we moved (two states to file), sold a house, bought a house, and have some business expenses (that part I have done the last two years). How complicated is any of that stuff? (We bought our previous home while we were in college and had been there until now, so this is all new for me.)

I work in finance and am very meticulous, so I am sure I would do just fine, but for some reason I am a bit nervous.

It seems like a waste of money to pay for something I can do myself, but I worry about making a mistake.

 

[fbb]

Without my tax guy, I would never have realized that my home is technically a solar powered wind farm and an Indian reservation.

 

[supersnoop]

Anyone have any experience with moving and doing your taxes?

I have always just done ours myself (even used to do my parents in HS/college to make sure my FAFSA got done), but this year we moved (two states to file), sold a house, bought a house, and have some business expenses (that part I have done the last two years). How complicated is any of that stuff? (We bought our previous home while we were in college and had been there until now, so this is all new for me.)

I work in finance and am very meticulous, so I am sure I would do just fine, but for some reason I am a bit nervous.

It seems like a waste of money to pay for something I can do myself, but I worry about making a mistake.

If you moved more than a certain distance because of a job or change in job, you can write off some of the moving expenses. You'll need to review your closing statements to verify how much property tax you paid on each property. Some closing expenses can be written off the first year, and some (I think points on the loan) have to be written off over the loan term. Any decent tax software will walk you through all that. Most will let you fill everything out and only charge you when you file, so you can try to do it yourself and change your mind later if you don't feel comfortable with the results.

 

[PigletsPal2]

DH does our taxes every year, but he's a finance officer with the government, so figures are in his blood LOL. Our income consists of our government annuities, Social Security, and DH's fees as an independent contractor finance officer. Things he has to consider when doing the taxes include, but are not necessarily limited to, the cost of his transportation to/from Washington/Florida three times a year, his hotel costs, food, gas for his daily commute, and perhaps our largest expense, the costs of my flights to/from Washington/Virginia four times a year to see my specialist physician. With both of us being "of an age" and in iffy health, we always have many more medical expenses than the minimum amount required to claim.

Fortunately, he keeps impeccable records and has all his required paperwork available long before we get the necessary forms and records from our banks, credit unions, mortgage holder, and always last, our 1099s from Uncle Sam.

Queen Colleen

 

[Nana2Callie]

We have a rental property (plus a small consulting side gig) and have used Turbo Tax for years. We keep receipts for everything and we have had no issues. We still find it worth doing ourselves instead of having someone do it.

What Turbo Tax version do you use?

 

[5kidsmommy]

We do not do our taxes ourself. My husband is self employed, we own our home and this year we also bought my parents a house so we are now their landlords. We've had the same guy doing our taxes for about 15 years now. We pay about $500 but it's totally worth it, too many variables.

 

[Shmily1]

We have one that was in college last year and I have a couple side businesses plus our main income and still do ours myself on Taxslayer. I've been using them since they came out. It was only $32.98 this year and easy with all the questions they ask and tips you can click on.

 

[ellie05]

We have a rental property and income in two states. I use turbo tax it is actually pretty easy.

 

[kymom99]

I have a rental property and use a professional tax lady. She only costs me $120. We are selling the property, and I am retiring this year, so I will use her at least one more time. She just seemed to know the questions to ask to get me the most money back. Before this we used a tax program, but were afraid to tackle it ourselves with buying a new place and beginning the rental business.

 

[Jewel3k]

We had a rental and my husband is considered self employed. I did my taxes myself (I use to be a CPA, not one that did taxes) until my husband became self employed. Its so much easier to have his law firm's CPA do it. The know exactly what is and is not deductible and are up on the laws. I'm sure they deduct way more stuff than I ever would. Plus I don't have to nag my husband about keeping receipts and being organized.

 

[Hisgirl]

I have always loved doing our taxes. Considered getting a Masters of Taxation. Loved the calculations. I usually did every by hand and enjoyed it. However, with our LLC and rental, passover losses, stock options, depreciations, I started using Turbo Tax. All was well until these past two years.

In 2014, I found a software glitch. This year, the same glitch was present and Turbo Tax confirmed there was a glitch and said they were working on it. I don't believe that to be true as it was there last year. Two years it's been there.

Also, if you use a Mac and use the CD you can run into corrupt files when you go to save or transfer your tax file. This happened to our last year's file.

I had two questions I couldn't figure out, couldn't google the answer, couldn't get a definitive answer reading the irs form so I called Turbo tax and asked for a tax advisor. She also couldn't answer any of my questions.

I'm done. Everything has been beautifully organized from the past five years and 2016 taxes will be done by a CPA.

Be careful with turbo tax if you use a Mac. Research how to properly save a tax file on the mac, do an additional back up PDF file and also print off ALL pages and worksheets.

 

[damskipi13]

Anyone have any experience with moving and doing your taxes?

I have always just done ours myself (even used to do my parents in HS/college to make sure my FAFSA got done), but this year we moved (two states to file), sold a house, bought a house, and have some business expenses (that part I have done the last two years). How complicated is any of that stuff? (We bought our previous home while we were in college and had been there until now, so this is all new for me.)

I've used Turbo Tax every year since graduating college. I have a rental home, tax-advantaged investments, regular investments, non-taxed income, the works, plus I sold my primary home last year. Turbo Tax took 3-4 hours this year with all of that, and has always worked well for me. I used a tax pro one year, but I also ran Turbo Tax that year and she didn't get me any extra deductions so I figured Turbo Tax was good enough.

 

[tvguy]

Same guy has done my taxes for the past 39 years. He'll be 70 in 3 years and is retiring then, so I will have to decide what to do then. Every time I have thought about doing my taxes myself, or using software, something comes up in my life that makes me glad I didn't.
My CPA says for most folks TurboTax is fine. He likes it because he usually had no money coming in during September and October, and now he has customers who used TurboTax calling to file amended returns, or correcting things that the IRS disallowed that TurboTax allowed.

 

[kathy884]

Our enrolled agent is wonderful. I did taxes myself for about 15 years (used turbo tax). But then kids came along, meaning less concentrated time without interruption to devote to this, and our taxes become more complex (exercising options, K-1s, filing separately sometimes to take deductions we wouldn't be able to take filing jointly). That last piece in particular saved us about $5000 a year in federal taxes for eight different years, and I don't think I would have been comfortable doing this on my own or thought of it without professional guidance. Another huge benefit it that when I get a letter from the IRS, my blood pressure goes up and I feel intimidated. Our enrolled agent corresponds with the IRS regularly. Over the last 18 years that we've had him prepare taxes he has responded to at least 10 different IRS inquiries for us, one time even getting their Ombudsman to take our case when the IRS was demanding money from us we didn't owe. In the end, the IRS agreed that we didn't owe them any extra money. The peace of mind from having a competent tax professional handle things like this for you is just wonderful. Our enrolled agent too, if he filed taxes for you doesn't charge you any extra for tax inquires and correspondence he handles after the filing. Wow! // Oh and the IRS has finally updated their computer systems and a certain type of inquiry and demand for money we used to get, now doesn't come to us any more (We had a problem with this for four different years, though, till systems were improved to do a better job of cross referencing data. Thank you.). Our enrolled agent also could guide us through the process when someone else filed under our SSN number. And even with the special PIN we had this happened to us again this year. // For us and the fact that we have such an excellent professional, there is little chance I would stop using him. He doesn't charge very much either. // An Enrolled Agent FYI is an accounting professional who specializes in Tax and has passed a special exam given by the IRS. Typically tax professionals are either CPAs or Enrolled Agents.

 

[wasnotafan]

I do ours (actually I am procrastinating from finishing them at the moment). If you are unsure you can always have someone look it over for you or have them do it this year and do it yourself in the future based on what they do this year.