Today I gathered up all my documents and sat down and did my taxes.

For the past years I have been using software from H&R Block, and it has really simplified the process.

I usually get a couple copies of the software in the mail. However, I could have just gone to the store and bought it or gone online and downloaded it.

The copies I get in the mail are mainly just advertising as they are CDs and many people don’t even have CDs in their computers anymore. The first thing that the software does is download the most current version anyway.

See Simpler Taxes? for more about the cartoon above.

Then it is pretty simple. I just follow the prompts and update the numbers from my standard entries from the year before.

When I don’t have any major life events, it is pretty much the same from the year before. How much did I earn, how much interest, how did my mutual funds do, what interest and taxes did I pay and you much did I give to charity.

I usually get a good refund, but was not expecting one this year. I paid a lot less mortgage interest and knew that with the tax changes decreasing withholding this year it would reduce the refund. It was nice to have a little bit more take home pay during the year but I knew I probably wouldn’t get the same refund.

In the end I had to pay a little bit to both Federal and State. The State payment is then a credit on the Federal next year, and if I hadn’t received a refund from the State last year I would have received a refund from Federal this year. It was that close.

Now if they would only use my tax dollars a bit more carefully.

Steven