Tax deadline looms

I have embraced the fact that we are better off paying someone to prepare our taxes. I have a system of filing everything in a "Taxes" expandable folder. Every category of tax info goes in its own spot, so for us, every home office deduction (that includes phone bills, Internet, computer equipment purchases, ink cartridges, office supplies) gets filed under Home Office expenses. All medical receipts from the doc and pharmacy go under medical. And so on. The best part of this is that I don't have to sort through piles of stuff at tax time and it is already in a nice little package if we every get audited. At the beginning of the year, I total everything up and send it off to the accountant. It is pricey to do it that way, but we have received higher refunds and I don't have to spend hours of my time trying to get it done.

Susan & Neil Hampton have three spectacular children, Alexander, Isabel and David, plus one amazing teenager, Eric. Susan does community outreach for arizonamoms.com.
“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” - Margaret Atwood

We too use to have someone do our taxes, until last June that is. When we got a notice from the IRS saying we owed them money. Our accountant forgot to check one little box on our 2005 taxes and the IRS wanted their money plus interest & penalty fees which totaled about $600. (the fees and penalties alone) Well, the accountant paid the interest and penalty fees and admitted that he forgot to check a box and that it was his fault. But i don't really think the IRS cares whose fault it is, they just want there money.

So this year we started doing them ourselves again. We were pretty upset about the whole thing last year...it's not the kind of letter you want to receive in the mail one day. We figured we can do them our selves with TurboTax. Plus, my husband it very good at handling these things (i hate it - so taxes are his chore), it was always just convenient to have someone handle it for us. Plus with my husband doing our taxes - i know there will NOT be any errors. IF you knew my husband, you would know how true that is. ;0)

just~me

Great idea to have the pharmacy print stuff off. Love that idea, but it's too late now.
We've decided for the upcoming year to use one of our credit cards for only medical things--it should be a big help next year.

Brooke Romney is an unbalanced mom of three young boys who constantly has too much to do, and too little time. She writes the Mom Beat column for The Gilbert Republic.

Credit cards also help. It's amazing how you think you put all your receipts away and then when you go through your Visa statement you find a few more visits to the Ped than you have in your file.

You can also go through duplicate checks, if you carry those and you like paying by check. But I do find credit cards more convenient. You just have to make sure you're paying off your bill and not getting swamped with extra interest expenses that you can't deduct.

As for using a service. I've thought about it, but the bulk of the work is getting your receipts together. Tax software is amazing. And I have an accountant in the family. Love you, bro!

Arizona Moms Editor Yvette Armendariz shares stories about raising her kids and tips for busy parents in her Time-starved (goddess) Mom blog. She and her husband are raising two children, ages 8 and 11.

We used to file our own taxes until I started my business. Now, I pay for our taxes to be completed by an accountant.

We have a very unglamorous yet functional system that we use to keep all of our tax records together. It's called a large ziplock. It stays in the same place, every day, all of the time, and then when tax time comes, it's all together.

Some of the other moms have added great ideas for keeping it simple - I particularly like the one re:putting all medical expenses on one credit card exclusively. With statement records available electronically, you are under less pressure to locate receipts.

As for timing? Yes - every year - it is a mad rush. I set my appointment with our accountant based on what I anticipate will be a reasonable amount of time for us to prepare. That appoitment date becomes a functional target to keep me honest.

Here's another thought - especially if you are doing your own taxes - I use Quicken for my records. The software memorizes transactions so if you do all of your shopping at the same store for tax-deductible items, it will autofill the fields based on your last entry. Very easy to get caught up very quickly.

Mouse_tales is a discussion leader in the East Valley for arizonamoms.com. She is a business owner, community volunteer, and aspiring runner (whew!), who most enjoys her roles as wife & mom. Her children range in age from 4 to 13.

You can also get a printout of all your prescriptions and their cost from your health care plan. We're on Caremark, and it's all available on the Web site. That saved me a ton of time and likely a ton of money.

That said, I get my taxes done within day of getting my W-2 from my employer. That's because I always get a tax refund because I don't claim any deductions during the year. Yes, I know, it would make more sense for me to get my money during the year than to let the government keep it and get it back in one lump.

But there always seems to be something I need a big chunk of money for this time of year. This year, I had the outside of our house repainted.

It works sort of like a forced savings plan. I'm sure there are better ways to do it, but it should comes in handy.

Karina Bland is raising her 9-year-old son in Tempe with a lot of love, humor and support from her friends and family. A longtime journalist covering child welfare and education issues for The Arizona Republic, she blogs about raising good kids.