Advantages to professional tax return?

[brickmanli]

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To all of you going to med school this fall: how are you filing for tax return? I'm considering using the H&R Block Professional Tax Service. Are there any advantages to using this kind of service, like maybe it'll save me some money because they know more about financial aid?

 

[Warren P. Cheswick]

I do it myself and save plenty it's not too hard to rad the instructions and tax breaks you get. As for not makign errors and finding breaks, they are about as good as a child in second grade doign your taxes.

 

[mcwmark]

Unless you own a home or a business, you probably would be better off just using Quicken's Turbotax. It's easy, practically brainless, and you can do both your Federal and State taxes in one shot.

 

[Jamier2]

I have always done my own taxes, because like someone said, if you don't have a business or something they're very easy. I did go visit an H&R Block office, and after I talked with the person who was going to do my return, I found that she didn't know very much at all about doing taxes. Maybe she was new, but she scared me and I haven't went back.

Seriously though, they're very easy to do yourself, assuming you can read and do basic math.

 

[Amy B]

You should try the turbotax to do your taxes. It is great. My husband and I have used it for years. I even used it when I was self-employed as a freelance photographer.

You can complete your whole return online and then pay for the product only if you want to at the end. You deceide in the beginning what form you are going to file 1040, or 1040 EZ, you then fill out everything. It walks you through each step and all you basically do is fill in the blanks when it asks you a question. It does everything and even lets you know if it thinks you missed something. It also has a part to go through to see if you have any audit redflags on your return. We have received a number of dectuctions we didn't even know we could take cause of this program.

We own a a house so we itemize and have to use the 1040 form. But I am sure the process for the 1040EZ are just as informative. It will keep track of your refund or payment amount as you go along. It also lets you know where you have made erros at the end so you can correct the mistakes.

You can file online, can do state and federal, plus it will save all your info for next year. It is a great program. It also allows you to start and stop wheneer you want. It saves your progress so you don't have to do it all at once. We have used a professional a few times and they cost way too much and don't give you anything extra that turbotax won't give you.

Go to <a href="http://www.quicken.com/taxes/" target="_blank">http://www.quicken.com/taxes/</a> and click on the top where it says "start a return" located in the orange box.

Good luck

The best part is you can chose to pay for it at the end of everything so you can make sure you like what you are buying. 😀

 

[brickmanli]

Thanks, but does Turbotax solve complications like part-year residency issues? My parents moved to another state last year and they have to file two state taxes.

 

[Amy B]

I'm not totally sure about the part-time resident. I do know that throughout the program it does ask you if you were fulltime or part-time so I can only assume that it will deal with it. It's worth trying since it is free until it the very end when it asks you if you want to submit it.

I do remember having to do parttime in two states and it is a pain. But at that time I didn't do the taxes online.

 

[edmadison]

To answer brickmanli question,

No, turbotax cannot solve all of your residency change problems. It might be able to solve simple ones. Last year, I got married. My wife was a NJ resident, I was a NYC resident and we both moved outside of NYC in New York. What a mess. I had to call both the NY and NJ state tax offices to figure out exactly what to do. But my situation was weird. I'm not sure anyone at HR Block would have been able to help me.

If you have a simple single move, you just need to get the right forms from each state and fill 'em out. If you don't have any capital gains or deductions to spread between the states, It will be a breeze.

My advice, use turbo tax for the federal and then do your state taxes by hand.

Ed