Doing your own tax returns

Hiring guns or not to file your tax return really depends on how much you have and how much time you can afford.

I must be in the majority who file the tax returns himself. I can tell you the advantages of doing it yourself from my own experience.

* With Turbo Tax and the ease of loading all my stock transactions from my broker, it is quite easy to do tax returns. I do not pay the accountant to do the data entry job that is quite free, error-free and automatic.

* By doing it yourself, you understand your tax conditions, tax laws... to make the best advantage of it. I did / do the following:

- Moved all partnership stocks to retirement accounts. I have a life too.

- Converted portion of 401K to Roth.

- Figured out that I have to withdraw from retirement accounts big and soon. Otherwise, the tax law requires me to withdraw at a large amount at age of 70 1/2 that could raise me to a very high taxable bracket.

- Take advantage of the low capital gain tax rate in last few years. At one year, I paid almost 0 for capital gain tax when I sold most of my long term gainers (you can buy them back).

- Notice the huge dividend tax that is coming and act accordingly.

* I do realize professional services are important esp. if your asset is above a certain level and/or your tax situation is complicated.

* Some highly appreciated stocks are good for charities and/or pass them to my heirs.

I did not use estate service before as the deductions are very generous. However, next year it may not. I spent about $4,000 for setting up wills and trusts. We do not want to be penny wise and pound stupid.