How To File Your Taxes - STEP BY STEP Tutorial

Sometimes the idea of even getting started with your tax return can feel really really really daunting, so in this video I'm going to try and make it a lot easier for you. You have several options on how to file your tax return and I'm going to walk you through several of them. We're gonna use the same example that we used in our last video for Mrs. Needs-To-File-Her-Taxes and so, if you haven't seen the first two videos in this series on taxes I'm gonna go ahead and leave a link for all of the videos in this series. The first video I walk through some forms and definitions, so I highly recommend you watch those first two videos and then come back to this video and then we can file our tax return together along with Mrs. Needs-To-File-Her-Taxes. I've been looking forward to showing you how to use some of these free tools that you can use in order to file your tax return, I think you're gonna realize that it's much easier than you had imagined it to be! I think a lot of times we kind of make things a little bit bigger than they actually are when all we have to do is just focus and get down to it and get the work done. I’m going to walk you through several ways on how you can file your tax return but first the disclaimer.

This video is meant for entertainment purposes only, this is not tax advice- consider this general info I learned along the way and consider this my opinion please always consult a tax professional for your specific tax situation for your specific tax advice.

I'm going to walk you through a few websites that are going to be helpful for you. These are resources that Mrs. Needs-To-File-Her-Taxes will be able to review and use when she's ready to file her tax return. This means she has all her documents in a row and ready to go. The IRS actually has a website full of resources that you can file your federal taxes for free- some of these options do include states so it will take a little bit of due diligence on your part to figure out which one is going to be the best one for you. You'll see that the IRS has a couple of options here based on your income, so most of us are going to fall into the income $72,000 and below category. So there are many different options on this website: there is free federal tax filing on an IRS partner site, there's state tax filing and some of them offer the free filing, there's also guided preparation, and then the online service does all the math for you. So there's more information on this website if you're interested you can browse for yourself. They also have an IRS free file online lookup tool, which I’ll go over in a little bit. They do respond to a few questions right off the bat such as: what programs are safe, what is free, and what is offered by the IRS.

Now when you click on browse all of the offers, on the page that shows up what you could do is just type in your AGI which is your adjusted gross income- you can probably use last year's numbers from your tax return. Also input your age if you think you're eligible for the earned income tax credit, if you don't know what that is I would suggest you search it in the IRS website so you can learn more about that.You can just browse through the different services they have here and see which one's right for you. They show you what is included in all the different options.

So the previous screen said that there was an IRS free file online lookup tool, so I'm going to go ahead and go to that tool and I actually really like this tool. I used this online lookup tool recently and I thought it was really helpful. The results kind of narrow it down to the options that might work best for you.

When filling it out you just fill out your specific attributes but for this video I just made up an example with Mrs. Needs-To-File-Her-Taxes, in the video you can see how I enter the information in for her. There are a few fields that you will need to fill out including; marital status, who the primary tax person is in your household, your age, your AGI, if you have your wages all ready you can enter that in with your self-employment gross income, if you have student loans, your earned income tax credit, the state you live in, and your military affiliation. It will give you the appropriate results for options that may work best for you.

One option is a tax act, so one of the things that you need to consider when you're looking at these free file options, is that there could be an up-charge if you start adding in more forms. So like if you have a mortgage interest it's going to be an up-charge, so it won't end up being free, but it could still be a good option for you if that is within your budget.

One of the things I like about this service is that you can use it as a self-directed option or there's also a support team who are there to help you check the status of your return.

The next option I want to talk about is the vita program. Now here's a fun fact: when I was in grad school I participated in this program so vita it stands for ‘volunteer income tax assistance program’ now this is a service that the IRS sponsors and allows people to file their taxes for free. The vita program has operated for over 50 years which is incredible! The vita program is going to be for people who fit a certain criteria. You have to generally make $57,000 or less for persons with disability or limited English speaking taxpayers who need assistance in preparing their own tax return. So again what I want to make sure that you understand is this is a volunteer program and so it's like on a first come first serve basis but just make sure that you get there early if you do want to do one of these programs to get your tax return done. When I volunteered it was so easy; there was a group of us that were filing taxes at my college, and people would just come in and we'd review their taxes and file their taxes for them and then the process would be finished! It was a really seamless process.

Now the last one that I want to talk about is TurboTax. This is probably the one that I'm most familiar with. They have an option for a simple tax return you can actually file for free which is awesome. Again there will be another up-charge if you start adding on more forms like if you received the mortgage interest or the student loans or whatever else, just know that ahead of time and try to do as much research as you can.

Lastly, I wanted to talk about how it's possible that you could hire a CPA or an EA (enrolled agent) or a tax accountant to do your tax return, but this is going to be the most expensive option. If you can diy your tax return I would definitely recommend it. I would highly recommend any of these free e-file options through the IRS. If you are going to go the route of a CPA or an EA or a tax accountant I would highly suggest that you ask your trusted friends & family if they know of a CPA or a tax accountant- referrals are going to be your best option for that!

Now that we know filing our taxes isn’t too difficult we're just gonna go ahead and get started, why wait any longer? However, with that said if you still have questions and you still need some one-on-one advice, I do have a service available for budget consulting calls, you can schedule a time with me on my calendar and we can talk through whatever specific questions you have about your budget, about your finances, or about your accounting/bookkeeping- whatever the case may be. I'm here to help you along the way to make sure that you can feel confident about doing your bookkeeping about doing your finances. Stay tuned for more of my tax videos!

Links mentioned in video:

My other tax videos: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH... https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-... https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/ https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/bro... https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/fil...

VITA Program: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/free-... TurboTax: https://turbotax.intuit.com/personal-...

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