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DEL.ICIO.USThe Turbo Tax breakdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Did you try to file your taxes electronically? I say “try” because plenty of people tried and failed. Apparently the TurboTax folks (Intuit) had more business than they could handle on Tuesday night and the system was overloaded.
The good news was that the IRS gave those folks 48 hours more to file.
For me? I go the low-tech way - an accountant who also is a lawyer and a former IRS agent. And, like most years, all I’ve filed at this time is an extension. Technology is a wonderful thing but there are plenty of times when it can’t compete with the old-fashioned way of doing things.
You can read about the TurboTax problems here.
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Comments
By Goose
April 20, 2007 4:53 PM | Link to this
Bill,
I agree with your comments about 99% of the time. However, your reference to old-fashioned way falls into that other 1% area. Your old-fashioned way is taking your information to a combination accountant/lawyer/IRS agent?! Your old-fashioned way is “passing the buck” or “contracting out”?! Also, don’t believe for a second that your accountant is completing your return with old-fashioned pen and paper. He/she is using the latest software to complete your return.
Many of us don’t have the $moola to be able to hire an accountant/lawyer/IRS agent. And with the tax code now in the area of 66,000 pages and 5 million words we must rely on technology to help us file our returns.
It is very sad that we must either rely on software or a combination accountant/lawyer/IRS agent in order to complete or returns. However, either way, without the technology the true old-fashioned way would now be very nearly impossible towards completing even a moderately difficult return.
By PatrckB
April 23, 2007 3:50 PM | Link to this
My wife is a craftsperson and is self-employeed. We’ve had an accountant do her/our taxes. We wonder what we pay him for because it seems that we do all the work filling out the “organizer” he sends us each year. I am impressed with the pile of forms he files for us each year. They are thicker than many of my old college term papers.
Last year a friend gave us a legit copy of TurboTAX. Appearently he had gotten it as part of a bundle. We filled it out with all our figures we had supplied in the organizer and came up with a pretty nice refund amount. We went ahead and had the accountant do the taxes as usual too. He came up with an even bigger refund. It was bigger than his fee.
So this year, I’ll give it to the expert again and pay him to deal with the tax code.
By Bill
April 23, 2007 8:24 PM | Link to this
He too Patrick - same here - nice fellow who is a CPA, lawyer and former IRS agent does mine.
I’m not sure that I want a robotic lawyer, accountant or physician. I think, with some things, there’s still an art to it that can’t be programmed.