Income Tax — DIY or Have it Done?

I've been doing piano part-time work for over 30 years, and for all those years I've had my income taxes done by a professional preparer who has now retired. I've always preferred tuning a few pianos, which I enjoy, to pay to have the taxes done because I've thought it would be a hassle to do them myself. Now, I either need a new preparer or do it myself.

My question is this: Is it best to let a pro do it, or has tax preparation software made it easy to do it yourself? I do itemize, including business expenses. I'm assuming that software today is pretty powerful, which has be thinking I might want to give it a try. I am a Mac user and wonder what tax prep software is available for that platform that would be recommended, if I decide to go that route. I could do it on a PC if there were a compelling reason to do so.

Your views and experiences will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

David Bauguess

I do my taxes myself. I use the Business version of Turbo Tax. I have found it very easy to use. It asks you simple yes and no questions and has all the forms needed. Once you set up an account, it will even remember you from year to year, and import all of your information from last year. You even have the option to E-file and everything is sent to the government digitally. You can also do your state taxes for an additional fee and it will pull all of the needed information from your federal return, thus saving a lot of time. At the end it will show you the likely hood of being audited. I have used Turbo Tax the last five years or so and have been very pleased with it.

Turbo Tax

I am an S. Corp. i have an accountant that is up to date on all of the latest tax codes and with these new tax increases in the loop for January 2013, for me anyway, I would rather have a human doing it that may be more up to date on whatever... Just my preference..

Turbo Tax sends out updates to it's software as there are changes in the tax codes.