Tax Season's Here!

Did you know that aluminum can income must be reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)?   I just about fainted when my IRS Auditor told me I had to report income from hauling my cans across town, and it never even came up to $5 a year!    I think I was getting 15 cents a pound.  Talk about hassle of keeping all those cash receipts, because they paid me in cash.  After my husband retired, he told me no more driving across town to get coffee money for my soft drink cans.  He does drive down the street and drop them in the recycle collection dumpster along with our newspapers.

I've used TurboTax Home & Business 2014 Fed + State + Fed Efile Tax Software + Refund Bonus Offer - Win and Quicken Home & Business 2015 for years.  While we do hire an accountant for the hard stuff, Turbotax and Quicken help organize our taxes and lower our payments to the accountant.   January 1st, I set up a binder with indexes.  These indexes correspond to the various tax schedules:  1040, Schedule A, Schedule B, Schedule C, etc. As I work my quicken during the year, my paperwork goes in the proper tab.  So, at the end of the year, it's just a matter of printing out the tax schedule, importing or keying it into turbotax and off to the accountant.    I have a friend that works in as an auditor for the IRS and told me that just using an accountant every once in a while can actually cause more harm than good, since many customers may keep doing their taxes like the accountant did them.  But laws change!