Tax Day

Today promises to be less stressful than last year's 4/15. I e-filed the taxes over the weekend and the only thing left to do today was muster the cash needed to pay. Of course that's the most unpleasant part.

I confess that there was cash sitting in the company checking account that should have been used to make estimated quarterly payments but parting with that money would have made it harder to deal with the times we got into a cash crunch.

The downside, of course, is that the underpayment penalty is huge. It doesn't feel good to have just pissed that money away. If I go back to consulting there will be a concerted effort to make the quarterly payments.

After comparing prices of the stand alone and on-line version of Turbotax I chose on-line. The big differentiator is that electronic filing is free if you do it on-line and somewhere in the $20 range if you use the workstation based version.

The thing I don't like about the on-line version is that you can't list multiple components for your input. For example, when using the stand-alone program, if you have multiple sources for mortgage interest you can put each one on a line and have the program use the total. From what I could see this isn't available in the on-line version.

And, I'm not sure how this works on the stand alone, but if you check the box to maximize your SEP IRA contribution it will show the additional deposit to be made. Then, if you go back and change a number that effects your self employment income it will change the amount you have to deposit to the retirement account without warning you. I think the user should be warned with big blinking red lights if this happens.

But, all in all, I welcome web 2.0.