Do you guys do your own taxes? If so, what do you recommend?

[dman81]

Hello,

This is my first year trading and boy was it a crappy one! LOL. Any way, I'm trying to gather all my trade transactions to calculate my losses, gains etc.

I found this site: http://taxes.about.com/od/capitalgai...ain_Worksh.htm

Seems to give a pretty decent lay out to enter the data in Excel. Do you guys have a spreadsheet to share or something of the sort? I also need to enter some option contracts that I bought and sold for a loss.

Any tips and suggestions would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks!

Daniel A.

[BadThad]

Last year was the first time I didn't do my own taxes. I just didn't want to deal with them anymore. LOL They are far too complicated and time consuming. Based on references from friends, I found a tax guy and used him. He was cheap, well worth the money IMO....don't tell him, but based on the time I used to spend on taxes....I would have paid him double what he charged me. LMAO My advice, find a good tax guy and don't ever use the mass tax services like HR Block. A single tax guy is the way to go since he'll work extra hard for you.....and for peanuts. :D And if you want to do them yourself......GOOD LUCK!

[elvis]

my moms friend does my taxes, it's free

[sg1efc]

This is the first year I will do my own taxes. I heard TurboTax is good and it has entries for stocks as well as other things (depending on which version you buy), so I guess I will try it.

[stockzilla]

I've always done my own taxes and I also prepare for others too. It seem more and more relatives believe this is a free service

If you make lots of trades (last year, I had over 1200), you may want to look at gainskeeper. They will figure out all your gains and losses for you. One thing to keep in mind is that if you trade options, it will not recognize those whih have achieved max pain (options that expire worthless), but will reconcile all your wash sales, then it transfer all your accounts onto your Sched D.

Turbo tax is a good program, but isnt really needed unless your financial situation has changed drastically.

[sg1efc]

I did end up using Turbo Tax and it worked extremely well and very easy for me to use. Very happy I got it. Was able to import my W-2 info automatically from my employer which was so convenient.

Feel more secure than giving an outsider all my tax info, including S.S. number. Too many hackers around and even companies out there that don't have good enough security for their customers' personal info.