Earlier this year I was assisting a friend of an acquaintance to fill out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid).  This friend is a single mother with a daughter in college and a son in kindergarten. To complete the form, I looked at her last year’s tax return. My first thought on looking at her return was that the refund was larger than I would have expected.

Like many, she over-withholds to get a refund early in the year. She relies on tax preparers to complete her tax return since she believes it too complicated for her to complete.  The tax preparer she used advertises that they will get the largest refund, and they did get her a larger refund than she should have received. However to complete a relatively simple tax return she was charged over $900.   The amount she paid almost completely wiped out the amount she received over what she should have received.

I checked her return with off-the-shelf tax software available at any office supply store. She still had a substantial refund, but it was almost $1,300 less than what she had received and paid over $900 to get.

Her return was simple.  She took the standard deduction, and other than some earned income credit and child care there was nothing more to her return. However, the preparer padded the file with a number of worksheets, of which some were meaningless. I pointed this out to her and she assured me that she would never use that preparer again.  I tried to convince her that she could prepare her own taxes, but wasn’t convincing enough.

So, let me try to convince those of you who go to someone else to prepare your taxes to stop spending that money and do your taxes yourself. It isn’t that difficult.  I have done my own taxes all my life. I did use an accountant to prepare the taxes for an “S” Corporation I owned with my wife, but in retrospect, I could probably have saved that money.

I have used both Turbo-Tax and Tax Cut and although I do have a preference, I’ll keep that to myself in order to be, or appear to be, objective. Both are easy to use, assuming you have a computer.  The key is to follow step-by-step and read all the instructions thoroughly unless a section obviously doesn’t apply.

One of the biggest advantages is that you can file online and have your refund within days. Another big advantage is time. You do not have to make an appointment with a tax preparer, and you can work at your own pace as well as being able to dig for, and find, any elusive documents without the pressure of meeting an appointment deadline.

If you take the standard deduction, as many of us will when we file our 2019 returns, the whole process should take less than an hour.

If you itemize, the software will help you squeeze out every last deductible cent, coming up with legal deductions you probably never dreamed of. It also will make sure you are aware of any credits, and will suggest how to best take advantage of those credits. The software I use helps in figuring charitable deductions since it gives dollar values to items donated to thrift shops run by charities. Until I started using that software, I had been deducting much less for that furniture I had donated when my wife decided to redecorate.

Most important, the software will remove the mystery of tax preparation, and you will wonder why you hadn’t done it before. No matter how thorough a tax preparer is, she or he, relies on your knowledge and understanding. Tax preparation software starts you from ground zero and walks you step-be-step to a complete return.

Now, if I have convinced you to prepare your own taxes, you may find that you are good at it and enjoy it.  If that’s the case, then you can start your own tax preparation business and charge people to do what they should be able to do themselves.  Good luck.