It's that time again...

...When your mailbox is full of envelops stamped with "IMPORTANT YEAR END TAX INFORMATION ENCLOSED"

From now till April 15th you'll hear everyone start chatting about filling their taxes. And I'm sure someone will mutter "Two things in life are for certain: Death and Taxes" or something along those lines. And when the dreaded April 15th roles around, Guess what will be on the 10:00 news? I'd bet it will be a reporter "on the scene" at the post office, talking about people getting their taxes post marked before 11:59pm. And they'll say that the post office will be open late for any last minute people trying to file. And they'll interview some poor sap who waited until the last minute to get their stuff compiled and he/she will say they are relieved it's done. Danie am I right?

So, this year I have the following documents W-2, 1098, 1099-B, 1099, K-1 , Hud-1. Or at least that I know of. I'm sure I'll get some other stuff in the mail in the next week or so. Taxes were a lot easier when I was only working part time in high school, just file that 1040EZ over the telephone, not anymore. Throw stocks and a house in the mix and you've got yourself a bunch of paperwork.

Here is where my beef comes in with the IRS. It is the only company in which you tell them how much you owe or need in a refund. But if you say the wrong number, wham, you get hit with an audit and more than likely some fines. So it's more like a game of "I'm thinking from a number from...." You get the idea. The IRS as far as I know, gets a copy of all the same tax documents you do. At least that's how I'm assuming they figure out when people are cheating on their taxes. And so we have companies in the private sector that provide assistance in helping with filing your taxes to a government agency. Why doesn't the government just buy one of these companies, like Turbo Tax, or H&R Block? Or why can't I just log into the IRS's website, enter in my SSN and some password, and it pops up and says. Your return is x amount of dollars based off of all the following tax documents we've received. That I guess would make too much sense. Now, I'm not bitter about paying taxes, I just think the whole process of doing them is completely *#$#'d up.

And don’t get me started on the fact that you have to pay to file your taxes, at least electronically. Shouldn’t that be free, and if you want to paper file then you should be charged? Seriously.

So the good news is there are some ways to make this whole process easier. The last two years I’ve used Turbo Tax to do my taxes. It worked great. This year I started playing around on Turbo Tax’s website. Turns out that you can go through the whole process of calculating your return without paying a cent. It does cost money if you do choose to file, but at least you can get an idea of how much you’ll get back, or if you end up on the short side of the deal, how much you owe. Its pretty sweet I must say. Too bad the IRS doesn’t do this.

So some fun facts:

• Each dependant will get you a $3500 deduction. (Jesse is not a dependant according to the IRS.)
• If you want to file any medical expenses you need over $4,400 in expenses. That is a lot of botox.
  
• Contributions to a Roth IRA gets you nothing, Traditional IRA contributions are deductible. Of course keep in mind that a Roth is tax free when it comes to taking back that money you’ve saved up out.
• Have a theft? You can deduct that too.
• Going to school, Check out the Lifetime Learning Credit or the Hope Credit. Man I miss those.

So compile your stack of W-2s and 1099s and check out Turbo-Tax’s website. It’s pretty sweet and since it’s free (unless you file) its even better. Quick way to figure out how much $$ you’re going to get back. /promo.