Tax Season

In the past few days, I’ve opened my mailbox and discovered 1099 forms and a W-2, in addition to 1098-E forms (student loan interest statements) in my email inbox. The forms are currently being organized in a folder. Our favorite time of year has come and I’m slowly preparing for it. Today, Jan. 20, marks the official start of the tax-filing season.

I have friends who haven’t started thinking about tax returns, and those who shrug because they’ll have someone else do it for them, or plan on finding someone who will. The Wall Street Journal reports that Americans will pay an average of $273 to a professional to prepare a Form 1040 plus Schedule A (one of the most common kinds of tax forms — Schedule A allows for itemized deductions), plus a state return.

There’s already a small uproar among those of us who do our own taxes and use TurboTax software to do it — Intuit “has raised the price of TurboTax for many users by $30 or more,” and H&R Block is hoping to woo unhappy customers to use its services (I’ve used both services and have been equally pleased).

In the meantime, I’ll be waiting a few weeks to get started; the one time I filed a tax return super early I had to amend it later due to an employer accidentally sending me a wrong W-2 form. Serves me right for wanting to get it over and done with?

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