It's that time of year again

As usual I have waited until the final hour to do my taxes. I don't know why I procrastinate. I used to do my taxes as soon as I received my W2 forms but slowly I fell out of that habit.

I remember how important I felt as a teen when I first started working and I finally earned enough to go to the tax preparer's office with my mom to get my taxes done. Back then all I had to file was an EZ so it cost something like $10-$15 to have someone else do my taxes for me. I started doing them myself until I moved into the territory of the 1040. That was when things started to get complicated and I found myself being pimped by H&R Block.

After a couple of years of having major issues with their preparers (basically not knowing what the heck they were doing) I tried Jackson Hewitt. They were a few dollars cheaper but not much better. Fortunately I was smart enough to not get suckered into the Rapid Refund schemes.

I finally decided to dive into the waters of online preparation. I started out with the popular TurboTax upon the recommendation of my cousin Troy. It was fast. It was easy. It was relatively painless, even with the additional attachments that I needed to file. I saved time and money! I was hooked! The following year someone turned me onto similar software that was even more economical than TurboTax. After researching the legitimacy of the company I tried it out. It is most affordable online tax preparation software out there. The drawback is that it is not as efficient or user friendly as TurboTax. It still walks you through the steps and checks your form for errors (without charging extra like H&R Block online!) but you should have an idea what you are doing if you choose to use this software. For the price you couldn't ask for a better deal, especially if you wound up underpaying the state - again.