Income Tax Time - Not Excited

When income tax time comes around beginning early February, I'm normally ready to sit down at the desk and get cranked up on 'em. Here it is, already the 19th of February and I've done nothing other than gather papers.

I used to know all the Fed and State tax rules that applied to me and wasted no time plugging the info into the right place on the proper forms, making a copy for myself and sending 'em off. I felt like I actually had the tax knowledge that I needed to make proper decisions during the coming year on expenditures and future planning to maximize my tax situation.
Then along came TurboTax. As the logo states, 'Choose Easy'. In the many years I've used TurboTax, I feel as though I've been dumbed down on tax regulations and laws, possibly too much.

TurboTax takes you by the hand and leads you through the tax maze, assuming you know nothing about where you're attempting to go. You just answer queries, plug in numbers and move on to the next screen until you run out of places to go; and then you're finished and electronically filed, both Federal and State.

TurboTax provides a running balance of your account at the top of the screen to let you know that you owe $5210 or that you're due a refund of $5012. Every time you enter more data, you find yourself checking the balance to determine if your status changed. If it's still red, you keep looking for ways to make it green. It's kind of like a computer game, only with real consequences and no REPLAY.

I usually get curious and switch over to the 'View Forms' option along the way just to see what TurboTax is doing with all that stuff I put into the boxes. The government must make a lot of changes to tax regulations as the forms don't look too much like they did when I filled them in with a pen in the old days. I'm not sure I could do manual taxes effectively today. Plus, that electronic filing and quick refund deposit in the bank account is really nice!

It's obvious that I only wrote this blog post so I could put off working on my taxes for a while longer. Doggone, is it time to watch the NASCAR race from Daytona?

Ponder Procrastination,
JD

PS - Maybe that's why I'm procrastinating this year. I don't expect a refund!!!

PPS - Filed my taxes electronically today for both Federal and State. TTax tells me the Feds have already accepted my return and I'm still waiting to hear from the Pretty Boy O'Malley State of Maryland (oops, hope he didn't read this)...BTW, today is March 11, 2011...even tho I procrastinated, I'm still a month before the due date, April 15. Looks like I procrastinated almost 3 weeks after this post is dated before I finally filed. That's what owing money to the Feds and O'Malley will do to ya.