The Sun's Financial Diary

For years, I have done our tax returns myself using tax preparation software from Intuite or H&R Block. The reason for not using a CPA for our taxes wasn’t about a few hundred dollars we have saved by filing our taxes ourself, but that with software tools like TurboTax and TaxCut, I felt that we [...]

Since we are only a few days into the new year, it’s still probably too early for many of us to consider filing 2011 tax returns, even though the 2012 tax season began on January 1st. Every year in the past few years, I waited until the last day to mail out our tax forms. [...]

The 2011 federal income tax deadline, April 18th, is only a little over a week away. If you haven’t finished your tax return yet, there isn’t much time to wait now. I haven’t done with our tax returns yet, as many times in the past, I will probably wait till next Friday April 15th to [...]

If you’re anything like me, you still have yet to file your federal income taxes for 2010. In my case, the work is already 99% done. The 1% that is left to be completed is printing out the form, writing a check and making a trip to the post office on Friday or Saturday. The [...]

Nothing hurts more than actually shelling out cash to prepare taxes. Except, that is, shelling out cash to pay taxes. If you do happen to opt for the prior, you’re in good company. Many of us choose to employ the assistance of a professional to help whittle down what we owe to Uncle Sam. Fortunately, [...]

Nowadays, you can almost do everything on your phone, including filing taxes. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the new app from the IRS that lets taxpayers check refund status on smartphones. While IRS3Go is a fine app, you can only check your refund status, if you are expecting one, with the application, [...]

Do you plan to file your 2010 income taxes electronically or still prefer to do it the old fashion way? I never used E-file, not since when I knew there’s such an option to file my tax returns. The reason for me to avoid e-filing my taxes is very simple: I didn’t have a refund [...]

Have an iPhone? Expect tax refund this year? Now you can check status of your refund on smartphone, thanks to the new iPhone and Android Apps released by the IRS today as the 2011 tax season is in full swing. The free app, called IRS2Go, is available in Apple App Store for iPhone, iPod, and [...]