Hi Friends.
Filing your taxes can be a scary thing. But it doesn't have to be if you have great friends with great information!
This info is for all the folks who was never taught the art of filing taxes. For people like me who have always relied on my parents to complete my tax stuff magically, I never understood the basic basic principles to allow myself to become independent from them. Simple steps like understanding that I need to file for 2 separate taxes for my federal and state never really came across my mind (Yes, how silly. But no one educated me about that). So here is a guide my buddy David E. Barta sent me to help me successfully complete my taxes all on my own! Pretty painless.
Most online services offer to do your state taxes for a cost, but you CAN file your Federal and State for FREE.
Federal Tax Return• Go to this link:
http://irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.html?portlet=4 • Click on "I Will Choose A Company" and select one. I highly recommend
TurboTax® Freedom Edition. I have used it the past two years, and it is great. There are a lot of random questions they ask, but you don't have to worry about most of them because we are young and simple and don't have all these crazy property/finance things to worry about. Also, you can set up your tax return to be Direct Deposited (that is, if the government owes you money).
• Two caveats:(i) Don't forget to save the pdf of your completed tax return for future records!
(ii) The Turbotax site will try and convince you to pay them to transfer all your stuff for your California State Return, but don't do that because you can do it on the CA State Board site for free (directions below). Simply do the Federal return on their site.
CA State Tax Return• Go to this link:
http://www.ftb.ca.gov/online/calfile/tips.asp?Submit=Continue • Scroll to the bottom and click on "Begin CalFile." But read the instructions before you start.
You're done!!
If this will be your first time filing taxes, I guarantee you'll feel like a rock star by the end of it.
Happy Filing!
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