Preparing Your Own Taxes: PRO's & CON's

Hire a paid professional or do it yourself?

Most free online tax software’s require that your income be under a given amount, most of them under 58,000 for the 2013 tax return versions. Some good features about these software’s are that they can be accessed from any computer with internet, they include the most popular forms, they are user friendly and can be intuitively interpreted.

Pro’s of doing it yourself:

• It’s free

• It’s educational

• It’s convenient

If you have access to the internet and have an entire morning or afternoon to dedicate to research and data to input, opt for filing yourself. You’ll avoid lines and can schedule filing when it’s convenient for you. See this website for more information:

http://www.irs.gov/uac/Free-File:-Do-Your-Federal-Taxes-for-Free

Con’s of doing it yourself:

• It’s technical

• It’s tedious

• It’s time consuming

You might not have the time to spend on researching topics to a satisfactory degree. It might make you feel less comfortable and uncertain about whether you’re filing correctly unless you spend more time on it than is economically advantageous.