The Taxing Season - Six Days to Go.

I love the StatCounter. It tells me things.

From the heartland (or so they tell us) the folks at H&R Block are snooping around to see what the blogs have to say about TurboTax. The big threat, I'm sure, is that people will find the courage to do their own taxes, thus depriving us of the privilege of paying through the nose for a service that generally isn't necessary.

What bugs me about the Block search is that they read that tiny reference to income taxes interspersed with a story about my personal life. I should separate my stream of consciousness posts a little better. LESSON LEARNED. So, let's give them something to read, shall we?

THE STORY:.

Until I got married (the time I refer to as "My Great Sickness") I always did my own taxes. Short form - no deductions - just the old single, 1040EZ form, the one with the big boxes to fill in like a 5th grader with a crayon. They even show you how to make the numbers. Sheesh.

When I got married, I was unsure of how to itemize and exactly how to fill out the hundreds of forms I was sure were necessary, now that I was a property owner and all. So, off the ex and I went to the local H & R Block office in downtown Mantua, which actually isn't a downtown.

We waddled in with our envelope full of W2's and property tax receipts, ready for the big finger up the ass. What we got was a bunch of questions from the tax preparer, who, the week before was probably selling shoes or driving a limousine.

I watched as he ran though all the questions, tapping on his keyboard and going through our paperwork. Eighty-five dollars later (this was 1991) we had a printed set of forms to sign and send in and a $1,200 check to write to the good people in Washington, D.C. The "D.C.", it turns out, stands for Doesn't Care..

What I left with, in addition to a lighter bank account, was the feeling that I was put through all of this as a by-product of fear. The fear that the government uses to get us to sweat-out the 15th of April and confuse us so that we feel like we have to use a paid preparer to do something that we should be able to do ourselves.

That was the first and last time I ever paid someone to do my taxes. It isn't that H & R Block is a bad service, because it isn't. What it is, is a non-related branch of the IRS. What galls me about them now is that they use games of chance and coercion to get people to take out loans against their income tax refund (which is actually an overpayment, but I digress) so that they can get their check sooner than they get it from the government. .

Now, however, we have e-filing and the luxury of software like TurboTax or TaxCut, which streamlines the process and asks ... ready? ... the exact same questions that the Block guy asks, only in the privacy of your home for a fraction of what you will pay the store. Why? Because TaxCut is an H & R Block product. My guess is, it's the same software that the guy in the Block office uses. Then, the money (provided there is some) can be deposited directly into your bank account in less than 10 days - interest free - for nothing more than the cost of the software. .

By the way, Intuit is a pretty cheap stock right now, if you're so inclined. .

So...

Do a lot of thinking about the process before you waddle into the Block office, or any other paid preparer. Think about the fear that the government uses to make you think that you have to pay someone to do something that you probably should not have to do to begin with.

The 1913 tax code took up 400 pages in its "Standard Federal Tax Reporter." By 2007, CCH filled more than 67,000 pages of that document with tax law intricacies.
"The law is very complicated and filling out the returns is somewhat mind-boggling," says Robert Simon, partner at Eisner & Lubin in New York. "The media keeps telling everyone how difficult it is and people just get panicky. They sit down and start (the filing process) with all this in the back of their minds. I can understand why people would be afraid to do it."

Do not be afraid. Buy the software and walk yourself through it. I'll bet that when you're done, you'll feel as foolish as I did 15 years ago..

Now, the boys in Kansas City have something interesting to read.

I feel better.