Investopedia has their list of The 10 Most Common Tax-Filing Mistakes available on Yahoo! Finance. According to them, the top 10 list looks like this:
- Wrong Filing Status
- Wrong Address
- Incorrect or Missing Social Security Numbers
- Unsigned Return
- Math Errors
- Tax Computation Errors
- Incorrect Identification Numbers
- Incorrect Financial Institution Information
- Undocumented Deductions
- Wrongly Claiming — or Forgetting to Claim — Credits And Rebates
Let’s stop and think about these for a moment. Most of these are simple data entry errors, and most are probably the same from one year to the next. Your mailing address doesn’t change that often, and your Social Security Number certainly doesn’t (unless you have extremely bad luck with identity theft).
I use Turbo Tax to do my taxes, but all tax software offers the same simply data entry and import features. I haven’t had to enter information like this in years – since I started using Turbo Tax. I entered it the first year, double (and triple) checked before I submitted my tax return and haven’t looked back since.
The same goes for computation errors and deductions. Most tax software (any worth its cost) will automatically compare your information with the available deductions to make sure you don’t leave anything on the table.
With software like Turbo Tax and HR-Block Tax Cut, there’s no reason to fall victim to these tax mistakes.
Of course, if you wrongly claim a dependant, no software is going to be able to catch that so you still need to know what you’re entering. But as a user of Tax Software, it’s comforting to me to know that most of the top 10 tax mistakes are not my problem. What about you?
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