We had this discussion a little while ago, but I have a question...

I am wondering if I can do my taxes by myself. Does this sound too complicated? We have a W2 from the Military, one from my work, a paper showing what we paid for preschool, what we earned in interest in our bank account, and what we did on the house.

Also, isn't there something I can use to do them for free since DH is military?? I forget what you guys said before... it's the pregnant brain

tax cut usuallu has a free version. it should be coming out soon if it already hasn't (ours are going to be a nightmare so i haven't really looked yet).

I THINK I read somewhere that turbo tax was free for military families. It sounds like your taxes would be simple enough to use turbo tax on. Even if you have to buy it, it doesn't cost that much...much less than paying someone to do them. HTH

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Go to the irs website: www.irs.gov
click on the freefile on the lower left side
then click browse companies or just scroll down and check out the requirements for getting to file your taxes free with these companies. I noticed that Turbo tax freedom will file your taxes free with military w2 active, and adjusted gross income of 52,000 or less or something. Check it out! I used turbo tax last year and its pretty easy, they really walk you thru everything and have help buttons for anything that you don't understand! I had to use tax cut this year and it was the same. Check them out and they usually have a tour on their web site so you can see how they work without commiting to using them.

I totally think you could do them yourself. Ours is really simple since we don't own anything and as long as you send in copies of your receipts for deductions (pre-school and house) it's really easy. I buy the Turbo tax Deluxe (at Costco for about $10 less than anywhere else) just because we have to do a state return and also it's simple to find deductions using this program. We have gone to H & R block twice in the eight years we've been married and I've done it myself the rest of the times. H & R could not get us a better return than I could so I gave up on them. This way is much cheaper.

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Our house is clean enough to be healthy, and dirty enough to be happy. ~Author Unknown

I've done our taxes since 1998, and though some years it's more complicated than the next, it's not really hard. Mostly, it's a lot of direction-reading and careful work. I think it is totally worth it to save the money preparing them myself.

you can so do it yourself ours sound like they were more complicated then yours and i did mine last week and they should be back already friday...look at irs.gov there is a thing i saw somewhere about military it might have been when i started mine on turbotax.com i think it asked me if we were military now that i think about it... it is simple you will save yourself tons of money and you can deduct everything you can at one of the comercial tax places.

I know here they do it free for the military on base somewhere. (We are civil service.) I would call the base and ask.

BUT, if you can't find a free place YES you can do that by yourself. We have more than that and I have always done our taxes with my dh's review to make sure I didn't miss anything. It is a piece of cake! (I use Turbo Tax online, by the way.)

Okay, I am in a minority here, but I would never do my taxes myself!!! I am so intimidated by the forms. As long as I keep getting back more than what it costs to have them done, H & R Block will be doing mine. I am not frugal when it comes to taxes!!

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