All the free tax software does not apply to me since I have to file forms beyond the free offers. I've researched a bunch of different software options and they all seem WAY overpriced since you can only use them once. I pay a tax guy who continually makes errors (as did the one I tried before him) and now I'm so sick of paying someone to do a bad job, I'd rather pay myself to do a good job. Any suggestions.
So: How does the pay-for-one-use software compare in price to your tax guy that makes errors?
I regularly spend about $30 a year on single use desktop software. I used TurboTax for years and switched to H&R a couple of years ago... all in that range. I don't pay state income tax, so ... that does reduce my cost some. It's probably double that for state inclusion.
There are totally free ways to do it by hand. And, I'd actually encourage you to do it once as a learning experience, even if you follow it up by checking it with tax software. Personally, I find it a pain in the ass**, but doing it once did give me a better understanding of what is going on. Probably if I did it by hand every year, I'd get used to it.
**For me the PITA is the IRS's language. What they are actually asking people to do is very simple. The legalese language is difficult for my brain to stumble through. You'll often read through a page of crap to essentially get "put the dollars from your form X into box Y."