OK, so I admit it: I’m something of a geek when it comes to doing taxes. As soon as I’ve got my various forms from the government, I start to calculate my taxes.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that I then go and file my taxes immediately; in fact, often I’ll fill out my draft forms, nod with satisfaction, and then forget about the whole ridiculous enterprise until April. (Also, for the past few years my tax situation has been sufficiently tricky — two countries, one or two states, and a province — that if I don’t get started right away, I might never overcome the inertia associated with that much paperwork.)
This year I decided to try something new. My Local Banking Alternative has a deal with TurboTax on the web so that one can fill in one’s forms, and submit them to the various federal and state governemnts involved, on-line. From the point of view of instant gratification, this is great. Given that I now have a very simple tax situation, ten minutes ago I opened my one and only W-2 and now I know how much money I’m getting back from the federal government.
Or almost.
See, I know a few things about computers. One upshot of this is that I don’t necessarily trust computers. They do exactly what you tell them to… no more, no less. And I don’t know who’s told these particular computers to do what.
So — as a purely precautionary measure — I’m going to go home in a few hours, pull out the various 1040s and 40s and whatever other forms I need to look at, and do my taxes myself. I don’t doubt that the web program’s right… or, at least, not much… but the fact that I can’t see the calculations makes me a little bit nervous.