Should You Do Your Own Taxes?

Should you do your own taxes? I've seen many people asking, "Can I file my own taxes?" or "Can I do my own taxes?" To professionals like me that seems like a weird question, but our whole lives we're trained to have someone else do our taxes. I assure you, you'll likely do a better job if you learn how to file taxes yourself.

If you are a W-2 employee only, absolutely! Turbotax is easy enough that it walks you through step by step. Answering, "should I do my own taxes?" would be a definite Yes!

If you are a W-2 employee and find yourself owing more than a few hundred dollars, then there are a couple of things you can do.

To affect what you owe NOW, you can put money into a Traditional IRA. You can put any amount from $1 to $6,000 in. This is tax deductible and stacks ON TOP of your standard deduction. While there is a penalty for taking the money out before a certain age/time period, it’s better than just giving money away to the govt in taxes.

Moving forward, you probably want to make changes to your W-4, which I made a video on how to fill out your W-4 form. You know, that form you fill out for taxes when you first get your job and no one helps you with it because no one knows how to fill it out? Yeah, that form.

So if you find yourself needing to take advantage of the Traditional IRA, I’d recommend TDAmeritrade. It’s who I use and they’ve been awesome. Here’s a link to that. https://start.tdameritrade.com/select

If you, and I hope you do, try to do your taxes yourself. Turbotax has always given me the largest tax refund and I’ve never had any issues with audits, etc. Here’s a link to turbotax: https://www.turbotax.com

Now, how to file taxes on TurboTax is quite easy, as I showed in the video it holds your hand every step of the way, and since you don't file or pay until the end, don't worry too much about making any mistakes as it's very good at catching them before filing.


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Equipment I used for this video:

Camera: https://amzn.to/2JX9Hfx
Tripod: https://amzn.to/2K2dzMf
Lighting: https://amzn.to/2SB8Ipp
Software for Mac: https://amzn.to/2Sw4hw9
Software for Windows: https://amzn.to/2SKMJfA

Cheaper Alternatives:
Camera: Cell phone
Tripod: Balance on a book 🤷🏽‍♂️
Editing Software: iMovie or Video Editor for Windows or use your phone.
Lighting: The sun 😎