[masraum]

Originally Posted by David

After spending hours creating excel templates to print on the store bought forms, I got the W-2’s and W-3 complete and mailed off. I’m happy to share the templates if anyone wants them.

My underlying problem is most likely something related to me being an engineer. I tried 2 different accountants many years ago when my taxes got complicated with some inherited oil properties. I found mistakes that both accountants made and have been doing my own taxes ever since. There is a family accountant I could use but haven’t although I do call him for advice occasionally. TurboTax has made it much easier but even then I’ve used their help line to answer some obscure form or box details. I tried to use the H&R Block software one year but it didn’t even have all the forms I needed! This has definitely gotten too complicated but I also get deductions I wouldn’t get if it was simpler so I guess I’m part of the problem too.

I'd used the free IRS document for years. Then my stuff got a little more complex, so I took it to a guy. When I got done paying and looking at what he did, I thought "I could do that. So I used Turbo Tax for many years. Our stuff got more complicated, so we tried going to a place. I wasn't impressed, and they basically filled in something like their own proprietary Turbo Tax. So am still using Turbo Tax. It's never steered me wrong. Get the right version and it'll have the stuff that you need.