E-Taxes

[Linkmeister]

For several years I have been paying a CPA to do my taxes, thinking it was pretty complicated as a sole proprietor to do my own. After figuring out that all he was doing was plugging my data into a software program, I thought "Hell, I can do that." So I bought a copy of TurboTax Deluxe this year and tried it myself. Not too tricky, and after looking at last year's (prepared by the CPA) and this year's (by TurboTax) side-by-side and seeing no obvious holes, I went ahead and E-filed today. If you owe, you can have the Feds debit your checking or savings account directly; the State you gotta send a check.

If you want to E-file with the state you have to file both Feds and State at the same time, it seems. You can send just the Feds, but then you're supposed to mail the State. This makes no sense, but what the heck. I downloaded a copy of the TurboTax Hawaii software ($29.95) and it plugged all the numbers in from the Federal form. The State one was virtually painless.

To E-file you have to pay $14.95 for each entity and then mail in a rebate form, so you're out $29.90 up front with the hope you'll get it back within 6-10 weeks.

Anyone else go the electronic route?

[helen]

At best I get the federal forms from the IRS web site, print out the form, fill it in and then mail it in. Of course I'm doing it with the 1040EZ.

[Konaguy]

I did the electronic route for both my state and federal. The hangup was
that the site I did my federal return improperly calculated my state
return. So I did my state return on the www.hawaii.gov website. I got
my taxes done early February...so I'm sitting pretty :D

Oh yeah depending on your income you can do both your state and federal
returns for free. Just look on the IRS website for the providers.