Bring on the W-2s

I bought the most recent copy of H&R Block's TaxCut income tax software the other day and am watching the mail for W-2s, 1090s, and other tax-related reports.

I've used TaxCut for about a decade now and can't imagine preparing our tax returns the old way, with a pencil and a calculator.

I remember my dad at tax time. He had a big 30-pound adding machine that he would bring home from his insurance office and set up on the kitchen table, along with what seemed like mountains of paperwork, his trusty mechanical pencil, a pack of Winstons, ashtray and cup of coffee.

He never got audited, so I guess he knew what he was doing.

Before I got a computer in the early 1990s, we paid a tax preparer to handle the annual ordeal.

Fellow reporter Skip Hess did a story on tax preparers for The Indianapolis News in the late '70s in which he took his tax papers to several places, including IRS Taxpayer Assistance and H&R Block. He got a different result with each one. The biggest refund was calculated by Pat Storen, owner of Storen Services, in Brownsburg, Ind.

Word quickly spread through the newsroom and in a few years just about everyone at The Indianapolis News was going to Pat to figure their taxes. Pat was a personable fellow who knew his stuff and had a knack for ferreting out deductible stuff you'd forgotten or overlooked.

He even stood by me the year we got audited. (It's a long story and I won't bore you with it here.) I ended up having to pay, but Pat gave it his best shot.

But by the early '90s, Pat's business had grown to the point where he was farming the work out to employees who weren't as confidence-inspiring and his rates went up substantially.

So I was ready for tax software when it showed up. I used TurboTax for the first few years, but switched to TaxCut because of the promise of H&R Block to go to bat for me if I got audited.

Last year's tax preparation was a little labor-intensive because I had returns to figure for Indiana as well as Arkansas. Not so this year, since we are no longer Indiana residents.

I plan to crunch the numbers as soon as I have all of the pertinent forms in hand. If we have money coming back, I'll e-file immediately so as to get the cash as soon as possible. If we owe, I'll hang onto the money until April 15.