How’s everyone doing with filing their 2019 tax returns? Are you taking advantage of the increased time at home with coronavirus to get yours filed?
Even with the government’s postponement of the tax filing deadline, I went ahead and submitted our family’s 2019 tax return last weekend to get it checked off my list.
To be perfectly honest, our taxes are quite complex.
We have self-employed business income, W2 income, 1099-INT income, 1099-MISC income, 1099-DIV income, 1099-B income (usually), own a home, move between states, have HSAs/FSAs/dependent care FSAs, multiple investment accounts, own/buy/sell homes, and have kids. Just about the only things we don’t have are rental income properties, large donations to charity, and large health expenses.
Our Switch from Using an Accountant to TaxAct
Since 2015, I have been using the TaxAct online tax platform to collect, organize, and filing my return. I switched from using a brick-and-mortar accountant to TaxAct in the 2014-2015 time period because my accountant charged me 2.6x the filing fee from the prior year ($650 vs. $250) simply because I had moved in 2014 from Virginia to Colorado. I wasn’t very happy/satisfied with this response since I felt that I had to do >50% of the leg-work to collect my tax information into a tax organizer for the accountant, adding a 2nd state’s tax return isn’t that difficult since the bulk of the information has already been collected from the federal return, and I knew there were much less expensive options out there.
I’m Very Satisfied with the TaxAct Experience, But Why Do the Prices Go Up So Much Each Year?!?!?
Listed below are the TaxAct prep fees I’ve paid associated with filing my tax returns for the past five years:
- 2015: $35 (Self Employed Federal + Colorado State).
- 2016: $55 (Self Employed Federal + Colorado State).
- 2017: $64 (Self Employed Federal + Colorado State).
- 2018: $72 (Self Employed Federal + Colorado State).
- 2019: $177 (Self Employed Federal + Colorado State + North Carolina State).
- $76 Self Employed Federal.
- $55 per state.
I’m not sure what happened between 2018-2019, but it looks like their pricing almost doubled! Maybe it’s time to find a new tax prep software?
