After procrastinating long enough we finally decided it was time to get our taxes done. I kept wanting to put it off after having owed last year I was worried I would owe again this year and our poor bank account can't really handle that after all the money we've spent on the house the past two months.
Since it was our first time filing since getting married and because of some past tax issues we decided it might be a good idea to have a professional do them. So we headed over to H&R Block and had a nice lady named Jo help us out. And 45 painless minutes later we were done AND we discovered we would be getting a very nice refund.
Jo ran the numbers both ways, filing jointly vs. filing separately to see which would produce a greater refund and filing jointly was the best option. When you're married it's usually better to file jointly but there are some instances where that's not the case so it's good to check both ways.
Going to H&R block wasn't cheap, they charge based on the complexity of your return. Jo told us she's done ones as cheap as $40 and as high as $980! Thankfully ours fell in the lower half of that scale though still considerably more expensive than turbo tax. Luckily our refund will more than reimburse us for the expense, as well as pay off one of the debts that's been a black cloud over our head AND still leaves us extra money which we plan to use to fix our front steps (a story for another post) and landscape our front yard...and maybe help Kristian buy me a nice birthday gift. Did I mention my birthday is in 44 days? Because it is.
So while we may have been able to get the same results on our own using Turbo Tax we both felt a lot more confident having someone do it for us this year and I'm just thrilled we didn't owe again!
Share time- Have you done your taxes? Do you do them yourself or have them done professionally?
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16 comments:
That's awesome. I normally did mine through turbo tax.. but decided to have my friends lady do them this year. I ended up getting back a thousand more then normal on federal and about three hundred more on state. =)
I did mine ages ago, as soon as my forms came in the mail! Granted, I don't own anything of substance, so I don't deduct things, making them pretty easy. I should also admit that my boyfriend did them for me :)
Of course, my refund is now long gone, having paid bills and then bought a few small fun things.
high five, love!
congrats on your tax returns! it is always fun to get that deposit :)
We have ours done because they've managed to get a little more complicated. In the past 12 months we have sold a piece of rental property that we owned with partners and sold and bought another home. Plus it doesn't hurt that Drew's business partner's wife owns a tax office and he does ours for free... Definitely makes it more appealing than doing them ourselves!
Seriously, I could get use to this married life if all tax returns are like this!! We are going to be putting in hard word floors in our first floor with ours. HEAVEN!!
And luckily I married an Accountant that uses Turbo Tax...if not, I'd be screwed. I'd probably still be having my Dad handle it:)
I am one of those weord people who get kind of excited about taxes becasue we have a really great tax attorney!!!
We had ours professionally done too, but I don't think it was too expensive. Phew. And we don't owe either. Sigh of relief. It was our 1st year filing together too! xoxo
I'm looking forward to the pay out next year!! :) Glad you guys were able to enjoy a hefty refund!
a bigger tax payout is the main reason why i'd ever get married. that and love but really you can love w/o being married.
i like to think of it as a business arrangement.
We need to finalize ours this weekend and I am not happy, since it looks like we'll owe either way. When I changed my status to "married" last year, I think my withholdings were somehow reduced by too much. Ugh. I hate taxes!
Good for you! How fun you were able to get a nice refund when you weren't expecting to! :)
I've went to an accountant in the past but didn't really need to, I wasted money then so the past few years I've been filing for free online using H&R blocks free services. Next year when I'm married though, we may have to use a professional since we're jointly filing, and we own a house so sometimes that can make things more difficult.
Huh. We actually got quite the penalty the first year after we were married when it came tax time. My husband is an accountant, so he files our return, but he is also very careful during the year to make sure our withholding is correct- so we usually get maybe $200 in a federal refund, which we use to pay what we owe state. Better than the IRS using my money for free all year! Confession: I have never filed my own taxes.
I know. When will I become a big kid?
Isn't that fun?! We got a great return for our first year filing jointly and we're using a lot of it to redo the flooring in our kitchen. The joys of being a homeowner! :)
David filed ours since he's an accountant and all - I can't believe how much some of those places charge!
I am a total weirdo and LOVE taxes! I have been doing them on my own since I was 18- but this year with so many changes and so much going on we decided to hire an accountant. It was nice to just drop everything off and let someone else take care of it all. refunds rule!
It paid to be married for us as well. We did our own taxes and got $3,000 back. Works for me!
I do my own!! One of the perks of being a tax attorney, actually knowing what the crap all of those tiny printed words and charts mean!
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