Happy-go-lucky tax commercials plague our screens with promises of a stress free tax season. Articles, ads, and website will tell you, “don’t stress, it’s just taxes” Co-worker, Karen, will tell you how easy it is, and belittle you for not completing your taxes yet. What Karen doesn’t tell you, is that she pays for someone else to file her taxes. So Karen really doesn’t know the stress you’re under. Even then, you may feel a bit guilty for not doing them yet.
Let’s face it; you know why you should file your taxes. You know that the sooner you do it, the sooner you’ll get your refund back. Once you file, you get to sleep easy and not have to worry about crunching numbers. You want to get a full night’s sleep. You’re running out of excuses and time: the deadline is April 17.
Getting online to file taxes should be easy. The commercial say it is at least. If you’re just starting out, only had one job, didn’t move, and didn’t make any big purchases, filing taxes online is the best option for you. It’s so simple, and you really just need to do it already. However, if you have a family, bought a new house, new car, go to school, have multiple incomes, filing taxes is a nightmare online.
Everybody wants to file taxes for free. It makes sense, if the government wants me to pay them, then they should do all the work for that money. Unfortunately that’s not the case. The IRS will audit you if you don’t file your taxes. If you have multiple papers to file this year, going with the free option might not be an option for you. For example if you have a health savings account, you are then required to upgrade to a “better” tax program. Tax programs make you upgrade in order for you to file correctly. What started out as a free program to file taxes with turned into a $69.99 purchase because you need to record that you had a health saving account in the previous year.
Not only do they add on to the price tag, they also require a lot of information. You may think that you have all your information handy, but it never fails that somehow you’re missing one paper and will have to tear apart your files in search of it.