Finding Tax Preparation Information Online
Finding a place to prepare taxes online is not too difficult these days. Finding good advice on how to prepare your taxes can be another story. Tax preparation advice can come from a variety of sources, including government, enterprise, and non-profit. This article covers a few of the major ones.
Government Sources
Believe it or not, one of the best online tax preparation resources is the IRS. You've got to watch your ".govs" and ".coms" though. "Irs.com" is a cleverly disguised informational site fronting for an online tax preparation service. Despite the official-looking building the bare-bones look, all clicks lead to the multi-tiered submission options that may get your taxes to the real IRS, and will put a little cash in their pocket at the same time. I think the actual IRS.gov site looks a bit better, to tell the truth, and that is where you'll need to go to get actual tax information from the government.
Www.irs.gov has gotten better every year at spelling out their procedures and rule changes in plain English. They have finally chosen to begin with the assumption, as the rest of us do, that preparing tax returns is destined to be a confusing process. Just as their telephone interaction has improved, so has their website. It's designed for the consumer, not the accountant and it's a good place to start.
Enterprise Sources
H&R Block is something of an eight hundred pound gorilla in the tax preparation game; not only have they been operating a storefront network for generations but they have also acquired one of the two major tax prep software programs, Tax Cut. Their web site has a collection of related articles that may be of value; topics include tax scams, higher education deductions, the alternative minimum tax and other issues that you could spend significant time searching for. If you're lucky, they've written it up - and their articles are professional and thorough. Other than that, the site is interested in selling its online and software versions of Tax Cut.
There are online tax preparation services galore these days. Some of them hook you up with an accounting firm, a few of them will sell you a software package and send it to you, but most of them walk you through the forms online. When you're done, you can file your federal form electronically. Some, though not all, of the online sites provide state returns as well. You can find a comprehensive list of the services out there on Yahoo at
Government Sources
Believe it or not, one of the best online tax preparation resources is the IRS. You've got to watch your ".govs" and ".coms" though. "Irs.com" is a cleverly disguised informational site fronting for an online tax preparation service. Despite the official-looking building the bare-bones look, all clicks lead to the multi-tiered submission options that may get your taxes to the real IRS, and will put a little cash in their pocket at the same time. I think the actual IRS.gov site looks a bit better, to tell the truth, and that is where you'll need to go to get actual tax information from the government.
Www.irs.gov has gotten better every year at spelling out their procedures and rule changes in plain English. They have finally chosen to begin with the assumption, as the rest of us do, that preparing tax returns is destined to be a confusing process. Just as their telephone interaction has improved, so has their website. It's designed for the consumer, not the accountant and it's a good place to start.
Enterprise Sources
H&R Block is something of an eight hundred pound gorilla in the tax preparation game; not only have they been operating a storefront network for generations but they have also acquired one of the two major tax prep software programs, Tax Cut. Their web site has a collection of related articles that may be of value; topics include tax scams, higher education deductions, the alternative minimum tax and other issues that you could spend significant time searching for. If you're lucky, they've written it up - and their articles are professional and thorough. Other than that, the site is interested in selling its online and software versions of Tax Cut.
There are online tax preparation services galore these days. Some of them hook you up with an accounting firm, a few of them will sell you a software package and send it to you, but most of them walk you through the forms online. When you're done, you can file your federal form electronically. Some, though not all, of the online sites provide state returns as well. You can find a comprehensive list of the services out there on Yahoo at
Finding a place to prepare taxes online is not too difficult these days. Finding good advice on how to prepare your taxes can be another story. Tax preparation advice can come from a variety of sources, including government, enterprise, and non-profit. This article covers a few of the major ones.
Government Sources
Believe it or not, one of the best online tax preparation resources is the IRS. You've got to watch your ".govs" and ".coms" though. "Irs.com" is a cleverly disguised informational site fronting for an online tax preparation service. Despite the official-looking building the bare-bones look, all clicks lead to the multi-tiered submission options that may get your taxes to the real IRS, and will put a little cash in their pocket at the same time. I think the actual IRS.gov site looks a bit better, to tell the truth, and that is where you'll need to go to get actual tax information from the government.
Www.irs.gov has gotten better every year at spelling out their procedures and rule changes in plain English. They have finally chosen to begin with the assumption, as the rest of us do, that preparing tax returns is destined to be a confusing process. Just as their telephone interaction has improved, so has their website. It's designed for the consumer, not the accountant and it's a good place to start.
Enterprise Sources
H&R Block is something of an eight hundred pound gorilla in the tax preparation game; not only have they been operating a storefront network for generations but they have also acquired one of the two major tax prep software programs, Tax Cut. Their web site has a collection of related articles that may be of value; topics include tax scams, higher education deductions, the alternative minimum tax and other issues that you could spend significant time searching for. If you're lucky, they've written it up - and their articles are professional and thorough. Other than that, the site is interested in selling its online and software versions of Tax Cut.
There are online tax preparation services galore these days. Some of them hook you up with an accounting firm, a few of them will sell you a software package and send it to you, but most of them walk you through the forms online. When you're done, you can file your federal form electronically. Some, though not all, of the online sites provide state returns as well. You can find a comprehensive list of the services out there on Yahoo at
Government Sources
Believe it or not, one of the best online tax preparation resources is the IRS. You've got to watch your ".govs" and ".coms" though. "Irs.com" is a cleverly disguised informational site fronting for an online tax preparation service. Despite the official-looking building the bare-bones look, all clicks lead to the multi-tiered submission options that may get your taxes to the real IRS, and will put a little cash in their pocket at the same time. I think the actual IRS.gov site looks a bit better, to tell the truth, and that is where you'll need to go to get actual tax information from the government.
Www.irs.gov has gotten better every year at spelling out their procedures and rule changes in plain English. They have finally chosen to begin with the assumption, as the rest of us do, that preparing tax returns is destined to be a confusing process. Just as their telephone interaction has improved, so has their website. It's designed for the consumer, not the accountant and it's a good place to start.
Enterprise Sources
H&R Block is something of an eight hundred pound gorilla in the tax preparation game; not only have they been operating a storefront network for generations but they have also acquired one of the two major tax prep software programs, Tax Cut. Their web site has a collection of related articles that may be of value; topics include tax scams, higher education deductions, the alternative minimum tax and other issues that you could spend significant time searching for. If you're lucky, they've written it up - and their articles are professional and thorough. Other than that, the site is interested in selling its online and software versions of Tax Cut.
There are online tax preparation services galore these days. Some of them hook you up with an accounting firm, a few of them will sell you a software package and send it to you, but most of them walk you through the forms online. When you're done, you can file your federal form electronically. Some, though not all, of the online sites provide state returns as well. You can find a comprehensive list of the services out there on Yahoo at
posted by zzzzzzzzzzz at
2:20 AM
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