To TurboTax or not is the question!

I often get the question what I think about using Turbo Tax versus using a tax professional.

The upside of using Turbo Tax is you will save some money on the preparation, not a lot, but some money. However the downside is that you have to spend your time, miss deductions or worse you make an error and it ends up with letter from the IRS. Here the downside is much greater than the upside in using Turbo Tax in my mind.

In reviewing many Turbo Tax returns about 50% of people either leave money on the table or else they make errors on their rentals, stocks or small businesses. In the Seattle area, stock options are often a source of over-payment in taxes.

If you have the time to dedicate to researching the latest tax laws and your return is fairly straightforward, then I would say go for it. But if not it doesn’t hurt to have it done once to make sure you aren’t missing anything.