A CPA explains how to file taxes yourself: gather W-2s, 1099s, and other income documents by early February, then use tax software to enter the data. Avoid hand-filled forms, which trigger audits due to errors, and skip cheap tax services that just teach software operation.
How can I file my personal taxes by myself? First thing I'll say is don't fill out the forms by yourself by hand. Everyone I know who's ever done it that way has always gotten an audit because they at a minimum messed up some calculations. So if you're going to file by yourself, first thing you need to know is you need to gather all your personal tax documents. Most of the time these are mailed to you— well, I should say they're either mailed to you or you get an email from whoever saying this tax document is ready for you to download online. So you're going to gather all that information: W-2s, mortgage statements, Charitable contributions, interest statements. Do you have an account with like a Charles Schwab, some sort of investment account? There's going to be a 1099-B that you get. There's a whole big old list of things, right? And it's just going to be impossible or really boring for me to list every single form on this video. So gather all your information together. Most people have until end of January, middle of February to get you that, those forms. Then once you have them, at a minimum, if you're doing this yourself, you're going to want to use a software because that's going to save you a lot of time. If you don't have any sort of business income, which would be paid on a 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC, if you don't have any of that type of income, Your taxes are pretty straightforward. There's not very many strategies, if any, at this point in 2023 where you would have some additional opportunity. Unfortunately for you, if that's your case, the tax code is really written for business owners. Um, so you'll get the information, use the software. Most the softwares are designed because they want to make your experience as easy as possible to kind of prompt you. Do you have this type of income? Yes. Okay, put it in now and, and do it that way. A word of caution, if you do choose to go the route of going to one of these like tax season sweatshops, as I might want to refer to them, I don't want to disparage any specific companies, but sometimes they have people dancing in costumes on the side of the street. Probably not the type of people I'm going to trust with tax knowledge. But know that those companies in most cases are training their people on how to use a software. They're not really being trained on tax knowledge. So it— if you're going to go that route, I personally would just recommend sticking with the software. You're going to save yourself a premium. Because you don't have to pay someone to then just walk you through the same software you could have used on your own. But if you're going to do it yourself, don't print off the forms and fill them out by hand. That's like you're just asking to be audited. Other than that, you use the software, it prompts you, you follow through. So if you wanted to do your taxes, that's probably my recommendation as a CPA in the industry. Um, keep in mind, if you miss income They're the first check that your return goes through is a computer check with the IRS, and they have information already on you. The W-2 you got, they also have that information. Like, all these places report that income to the IRS, so they know what they're expecting. And if it doesn't match, if your return doesn't match what their system says, it is an automatic audit based on their statistics. So keep that in mind. Hopefully that helps. And remember, the IRS really just, they find ways, they stay up at night trying to find ways to screw you over.
